van^elism 


ilMHM 


WILLIAM  E.BIEDERWOLF 


'^\ 


.^/ 


BV  4!j2U  .Bw'-i  ^j'^^ 

Biederwolf,  William  E. 

1867 

1939. 

Evangelism 

EVANGELISM 


WORKS  BY 

W.  E.  BIEDERWOLF 


How  Can  God  Answer  Prayer  ? 

izmo,  cloth. 
A    devout    and    exceedingly    helpful   and 
thorough  discussion  of  a  great  theme. 

The    Growing    Christian;   or,  the 
Development  of  the  Spiritual  Life, 

1 2 mo,  cloth. 
Deals  with  the  implanted  hfe  o{  God  in  the 
soul,  the  conditions  of  growth  and  decay, 
the  signs  of  arrested  development,  and  the 
type  of  growth  as  presented  by  the  Apostle 
Paul  in  his  instructions  to  the  Ephesian 
Church. 

A  Help  to  the  Study  of  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

i6mo,  cloth. 

A  careful  and  diligent  study  of  the  Scripture 
teaching  as  to  the  personality,  diety,  sealing, 
anointing,  communion,  fruits,  baptism,  fill- 
ing, emblems  and  resistance  of  the  Spirit. 

The  White  Life,  A  Plea  for  Personal 
Purity. 

New  Edition.     Paper. 

The  study  of  the  seventh  commandment  and 
a  loving  and  earnest  appeal  to  men. 


EVANGELISM: 


ITS  JUSTIFICATION,  ITS  OPERATION 
AND  ITS  VALUE 


BY 


WILLIAM   E.  BIEDERWOLF,  D.D. 

Secretary  of 
The  National  Federated  Evangelistic  Committee  t/ 


New  York  Chicago 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London  and         EpJN?V^G|f 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
FLEMING  H,  REVELL  COMPANY 


PRINTED    IN    THE 


UNITED     STATES     OF     AMERICA 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  17  North  Wabash  Ave. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:    75    Princes    Street 


CONTENTS 

I.     Evangelism  :  Its  Meaning  and  His- 


tory 


11.    The  Philosophy  of   Revival  and 

ITS  Historical  Justification       .  37 

III.    The  Preacher  and  His  Message     .  59 

-IV.     Pastoral  Evangelism        ...  85 

V.    The  Union  Evangelistic  Campaign  109 

VI.    Preparation  and  Operation     .        -  129 

VII.    Individual  Evangelism     .        .        •  i53 

VIII.    The  Invitation  and  After-Meeting  185 

IX.     Conservation  of  Results       .        •  211 

X.    The  Great  Evangelist-— the  Holy 

Spirit ^^^ 


A  WORD  FROM  THE  AUTHOR 

The  contents  of  this  volume  have  come  out  of 
a  long  and  blessed  experience  in  Evangelistic  work. 
The  Lectures  were  prepared  more  especially  for  the 
students  of  our  Theological  Seminaries  and  deliv- 
ered as  a  part  of  the  program  of  the  National 
Federated  Evangelistic  Committee  of  which  the 
author  was  formerly  General  Secretary. 

They  were  delivered  to  the  students  of  Princeton 
Theological  Seminary  and  later  to  those  of  Xenia 
Theological  Seminary  and  elsewhere,  including  the 
students  of  the  Moody  Bible  Institute,  and  they  are 
put  in  this  permanent  form  with  very  little  modifica- 
tion from  the  original  form  and  phraseology  in 
which  they  were  delivered  at  the  very  urgent  peti- 
tion of  the  many  students  who  heard  them. 

The  author  is  happy  in  the  thought  of  the  inspira- 
tion seemingly  derived  from  them  by  the  many 
splendid  young  men  who  have  devoted  their  lives 
to  the  Gospel  ministry,  and  he  trusts,  in  now 
committing  them  to  print,  that,  whatever  of  value 
they  may  perchance  possess,  they  may  be  likewise 
helpful  to  any  others  to  whose  attention  they  may 
thus  be  brought. 


EVANGELISM 


EVANGELISM 

ITS   MEANING  AND  HISTORY 

I.   Introductory  Remarks. 

1.  The  object  of  these  lectures  briefly  defined. 

2.  EvangeHsm  defined  etymologically. 

II.  The  New  Testament  usage  of  the  Word. 

I.    EvangeHsm  the  supreme  mission  of  the  church. 

2  Evangelism  foremost  in  every  minister's  life  re- 
gardless of  the  particular  phase  of  mmistry  to 
which  he  feels  himself  called  of  God. 

(a)  In  his  preparation. 

(b)  In  his  active  ministry. 

(c)  In  his  everyday  service. 

3.  The  Office  of  the  Evangelist. 

(a)  Does   Scripture  recognize  it? 

(b)  Indications  of  its  intended  permanency. 

(c)  Has  history  warranted  its  contmuance? 

(d)  Do  present-day  needs   w,arrant  its   con- 

tinuance ? 

(i)  As  seen  in  the  world. 
(2)  As  seen  in  the  church. 

4.  Evangelism    to    continue    in    every    effective    and 

legitimate  form. 

III.  The  History  of  Evangelism. 

I     The  Evangelism  of  the  prophets,  1500  B.C.-30  a.d. 

2.  The   Evangelism  of   the   Apostles   and  the  early 

church,  33  A.D.-350. 

3.  Evangelism  in  modern  times. 

(a)  The  Reformation  Period,  1300-1550. 

(b)  The  Revival  of  the  Seventeenth  Century, 

1600-1675. 

(c)  The  Great  Awakening  of  the  Eighteenth 

Century,  1725-1750. 

(d)  The  Outpouring  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 

tury, 1 800- 1 850. 

(e)  The  Revival  of  1857. 

(f)  Late  Modern  Revivals,  1860-1920. 


I 

EVANGELISM 

ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY 

IT  is  a  genuine  pleasure  to  address  a  body  of 
men  in  course  of  preparation  for  the  highest 
and  holiest  work  God  has  ever  given  any  of 
His  creatures  to  undertake. 

Yours  is  the  biggest  business  in  all  the  universe. 
If  it  were  given  heaven  to  do,  angels  would  vie  with 
archangels  and  cherubim  with  seraphim  in  their 
haste  to  reach  the  earth  to  undertake  it. 

And  yet  what  is  your  thought  of  how  the  One 
who  gave  the  Church  her  Great  Commission  feels 
about  the  way  the  Church  has  given  herself  to  her 
task?  When  Queen  Victoria  was  asked  how  long 
it  would  take  her  with  the  force  at  her  command  to 
get  a  message  to  every  man,  woman  and  child  in 
the  world,  she  said  "  eighteen  months."  But  the 
church,  compared  with  whose  force  that  of  Queen 
Victoria  was  most  insignificant  indeed,  has  been 
more  than  two  thousand  years  getting  the  message 
of  the  crucified  Christ  to  the  world  and  as  yet  not 
a  single  town  or  village  has  been  wholly  converted. 
Thousands  have  never  yet  even  heard  the  glad  news. 
Only  a  hundredth  part  of  the  world's  people  is 
within  the  fold  of  church  membership  today. 

9 


10  EVANGELISM 

We  have  conventions  enough  and  we  organize 
societies  enough;  we  pass  resolutions  enough  and 
we  appoint  committees  enough;  we  print  books 
enough  on  "  How  to  Do  Church  Work,"  and  we 
deliver  lectures  enough  on  "  How  to  Reach  the 
Masses,"  but  we  don't  seem  to  get  down  to  the 
business  of  the  church  in  real  blood-earnestnes^ 
and  do  the  thing  which  we  spend  so  much  of  God's 
time  talking  about. 

We  need  a  little  more  of  the  rugged  readiness 
and  insuperable  initiative  of  old  Miles,  the  bridge- 
builder.  We  spend  too  much  time  *'  getting  ready 
to  get  ready.''  When  Stonewall  Jackson  wanted 
to  get  over  the  Shenandoah  River  in  twenty-four 
hours  he  told  his  old  bridge-builder  to  get  the 
thing  done  as  quickly  as  he  could  and  said  he  had 
ordered  his  engineer  to  prepare  the  plans  and  hand 
them  over  to  him  at  once.  About  ten  hours  later 
he  asked  old  Miles  how  he  was  getting  along,  and 
the  old  man  said,  "  General,  the  bridge  is  built ; 
I  don't  know  whether  the  picture  is  done  yet  or 
not' 

It  is  the  purpose,  therefore,  of  these  lectures 
to  bring  to  you  who  are  preparing  for  the  min- 
istry an  increased  sense  of  the  responsibility  rest- 
ing upon  us  all  for  the  spiritual  transformation 
of  the  world;  to  discuss  with  you  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal means,  and  in  a  certain  sense  the  only  means, 
for  its  accomplishment;  to  set  forth  something  of 
how  God  has  set  His  seal  upon  this  particular 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  11 

form  of  the  ministry  called  Evangelism;  to  put 
ourselves  wise  to  those  things  which  interfere  with 
its  efficiency,  and  to  make  clear  if  possible  the  best 
methods  for  the  successful  prosecution  of  that  work 
which  God  had  in  mind  when  He  ''  gave  some  to 
be  evangelists,"  and  when  He  told  Paul  to  tell 
Timothy,  the  pastor,  to  "do  the  work  of  an  evan- 
gelist." 

^  "  Evangelism  "  is  a  great  word.  "  Evangel  " 
means  "  good  tidings."  "  Gospel,"  etymologically, 
means  the  "  God-story."  Therefore,  "  Evangel  " 
and  "  Gospel "  are  in  reality  one  and  the  same 
thing.  *'  Ism  "  means  "  doctrine."  "  Evangel- 
ism," therefore,  means  "  The  d^octrine  of  the  Gos- 
pel." 

V  "  Revivalism,"  strictly  speaking,  means  the  ^re- 
animating of  that  which  is  already  living,  but  in 
a  state  of  declension.  It  has  to  do  primarily  with 
the  Christian;  whereas,  "  EvangeUsm,"  in  our 
thought  of  the  word,  as  well  as  in  its  derivative 
sense,  refers  primarily  to  the  proclamation  of  the 
Gospel  to  the  unregenerate. 

THE  NEW   TESTAMENT  USAGE  OF  THE  WORD 

While  the  Greek  word,  "  uangelisto  "  (evangel- 
ist), is  mentioned  only  three  times  in  the  New 
Testament,  the  Greek  verb,  "  uangeHzo  "  (to  evan- 
gelize), is  mentioned  fifty-two  times,  and  the  Greek 
word,  "uangelion",  (the  Gospel),  is  mentioned 
seventy-four  times.     Evangelism,  therefore,  means 


12  EVANGELISM 

preaching  the  Gospel  with  special  reference  to  call- 
ing the  attention  of  the  unconverted  to  the  "  good 
news ''  it  contains.  The  other  phase  of  the  Chris- 
tian ministry,  the  establishing  of  the  convert  in 
the  faith  and  Revivalism  as  defined  above,  which, 
of  course,  must  always  follow  Evangelism,  is  fully 
as  important,  for  without  it  Evangelism  is  always 
incomplete  and  sometimes  abortive  and  worse  than 
useless.  When  a  man  becomes  a  Christian,  the 
next  question  he  ought  to  have  put  to  him  is, 
"  What  kind  of  a  Christian  are  you  going  to  be?  " 
Not  one,  let  it  be  hoped,  like  the  fellow  who  got 
up  in  a  meeting  down  in  Kentucky  and  said, 
"  Brethren,  I've  been  a  Christian  now  for  nine 
years,  and  I've  been  getting  honrier  and  honrier 
and  honrier  every  year;  pray  for  me  that  I  may 
hold  out  faithful." 

We  make  no  mistake,  therefore,  when  we  say 
that  evangelism  is  the  first  and  in  a  sense  the  su- 
preme mission  of  the  church.  The  French  have 
a  phrase  they  call  raison  d'etre.  They  tell  us  it 
means  the  "  why  "  of  a  thing,  the  reason  for  its 
being.  And  we  all  know  full  well  that  the  church 
is  here  as  God's  great  evangelizing  agency.  I  allow 
no  one  to  go  beyond  me  in  emphasizing  the  duty 
of  the  church  to  present-day  social  and  economic 
problems.  And  I  know  that  in  other  ways  the 
needs  are  myriad  and  the  demands  are  multifa- 
rious, so  much  so  that  if  the  church  were  that 
dragon-fly  with  i,ooo  eyes  she  could  not  see  them 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  13 

all,  and  if  she  were  Briareus  with  his  hundred 
arms  she  could  not  meet  them  all,  but  yet,  after 
all  is  said,  the  first  and  fundamental  duty  of  the 
church  is  evangelistic— the  winning  of  men  for 
Christ. 

Evangelism  must,  therefore,  have  Jhe  foremost 
place  in  every  minister's  life,  regardless  of  that 
particular  phase  of  the  ministry  to  which  he  feels 
himself  called  of  God. 

When  Paul  said,  "Do  the  work  of  an  Evan- 
gelist,'' he  was  writing  to  a  pastor.    And  it  is  a  sad 
thmg  when  a  pastor  becomes  so  obsessed  with  the 
idea  of  the  breadth  of  his  message  and  the  com- 
>l^y  of  his  ministry  that  his  pulpit  efforts  be- 
come ^^rt  of  a  "de  omnibus  rebus  et  cetera  re- 
bus'' affair,  instead  of  a  travail  of  soul   for  the 
unsaved,  before  whom,  by  the  grace  of  God,  he 
has  been  allowed  to  stand  as  an  evangel  in  the  stead 
of  Christ;  and  what  the  church  needs,  to  use  the 
words  of  A.  C.  Dixon,  is  "  more  pastors  who  have 
an  evangelistic  conscience,  preach  an   evangelistic 
Gospel,  pursue  evangelistic  methods  and  magnify 
evangelistic  experiences." 

And  so  in  his  preparation,  in  his  active  minis- 
try and  in  his  everyday  service,  evangelism  should 
be  the  dominant  note  of  the  preacher's  life. 

In  the  preparation  of  his  sermon,  the  thought 
of  what  he  has  really  been  called  to  do  should 
be  uppermost  in  his  mind.  Many  a  preacher  spends 
more  time  on  the  rhetorical  ornamentation  of  his 


U  EVANGELISM 

sermon  than  he  does  on  trying  to  make  Jesus  shine 
out  through  all  he  says.  And  a  preacher  like  that 
is  always  concerned  more  about  what  people  will 
think  of  his  sermon  than  he  is  about  what  they 
will  think  of  the  Christ  he  professes  himself  called 
to  preach. 

This  is  not  so  easy  to  admit,  and  we  are  not  all 
of  us  quite  so  frank  about  it  as  was  a  certain 
preacher  who  came  down  from  his  pulpit  and  a 
woman  said  to  him,  "  That  was  a  fine  sermon  you 
preached."  He  replied,  "  Yes,  Madam,  the  Devil 
just  told  me  that  as  I  stepped  out  of  the  pulpit." 

If  a  preacher  really  wants  souls  converted  under 
the  preaching  of  a  sermon,  the  sermon  will  be  con- 
structed with  that  end  in  view,  and  then  in  his 
public  utterance  he  will  preach  as  though  he  ex- 
pected God  to  honour  the  message  in  the  rock- 
rooted  conviction  and  sound  conversion  of  the  man 
who  sits  before  him  to  hear  the  word  of  life  while 
he  preaches. 

And  such  a  preacher  by  the  way  will  not  overlook 
the  real  meaning  of  his  ministry  in  his  everyday  life 
and  service.  It  is  said  of  a  noted  American  clergy- 
man that  he  one  tin^e  preached  in  the  pulpit  of 
Robert  Murray  McCheyne.  He  asked  the  people 
to  tell  him  something  about  the  famous  Scotch 
preacher;  something  about  his  sermons,  the  texts  he 
chose  and  the  gestures  he  made,  but  Robert  Murray 
McCheyne  had  been  so  long  dead  that  no  one  could 
be  found  old  enough  to  remember.     At  last  he 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  15 

found  an  old,  white-haired  man  standing  on  the 
steps  of  the  church  and  he  asked  him  to  tell  him 
what  he  wanted  to  know.  The  old  man  replied, 
that  he  couldn't  recall  very  much  of  the  information 
desired,  but  there  was  one  thing  he  said  which  he 
had  never  forgotten.  Said  he,  "  When  I  was  a  mere 
lad,  standing  by  the  road-side  one  day,  Robert 
Murray  McCheyne  came  along  the  way  and  he  said 
to  me,  *  Jamie,  my  lad,  I  am  just  going  down  to 
see  your  sister;  she  is  very  sick  and  we  are  fearful 
she  will  not  get  well.  And,  Jamie,'  said  he,  as  he 
put  his  hand  upon  my  head  and  the  tear  glistened  in 
his  eye,  '  I  am  very  much  concerned  about  your  own 
soul;  I  pray,  Jamie,  that  you  may  give  yourself  to 
Christ.'  "  Said  the  old  man,  "  I  have  forgotten  all 
about  his  gestures  and  all  about  his  texts,  but  I  can 
never  forget  the  words  he  spoke  to  me  that  day 
by  the  road-side  and  I  can  see  the  tear  in  his  eye 
today  and  feel  the  pressure  of  his  trembling  hand 
upon  my  head  as  he  said  to  me,  *  Jamie,  I  am  much 
concerned  about  your  soul.'  "  And  the  placing  of 
that  trembling  hand  upon  that  Scotch  lad's  head  was 
a  finer  gesture,  young  men,  than  pulpit  ever  knew. 
That  the  New  Testament  recognizes  the  office  of 
the  evangelist  we  have  already  seen.  Of  course 
when  Paul  told  a  certain  pastor,  Timothy,  to  "  do 
the  work  of  an  evangelist,"  he  was  not  advising 
him  to  travel  about  the  land  and  hold  evangelistic 
meetings.  We  know  this  because  he  told  him  to  do 
certain  other  things,  which  shows  clearly  that  he 


16  EVANGELISM 

meant  for  him  to  stay  at  home.  It  is  quite  clear, 
however,  from  Ephesians  4:  11,  that  there  is  an 
office  of  the  evangelist  quite  distinct  from  that  of 
the  pastor.  And  so  far  as  the  indications  of  Scrip- 
ture are  concerned  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  it  was  meant  to  be  quite  as  permanent. 

Nor  have  we  ever  been  able  to  quite  understand 
why  the  same  reason  for  scientific  specialization 
should  not  exist  in  religious  work  as  in  every  other 
field  of  endeavour.  At  any  rate  there  has  been  at 
least  for  centuries  an  evangelism  distinct  from  the 
work  of  the  regular  ministry  or  pastorate,  upon 
which  the  seal  of  divine  approval  has  always  been 
set  in  such  a  marvellous  measure  that  the  church 
has  been  glad  to  acknowledge  its  great  debt  to  this 
particular  form  of  Christian  activity. 

Present-day  needs  not  only  warrant  but  impera- 
tively demand  the  continuance  of  evangelistic  work. 
Of  this  there  can  be  absolutely  no  question.  This  is 
true  whether  we  speak  of  evangelism  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  pastor  or  of  the  vocational  evan- 
gelist or  of  the  individual.  This  may  be  seen  both 
in  the  world  condition  and  in  the  condition  of  the 
church. 

I  know  the  human  race  has  improved  in  a  general 
way,  but  it*s  in  a  bad  fix  spiritually.  Science  has 
brought  us  the  wireless  and  the  airship,  and  dis- 
covery has  made  us  acquainted  with  radium,  and 
knowledge  and  general  culture  have  been  on  the  in- 
crease.   But  science  never  made  a  saint,  and  all  the 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  17 

libraries  that  Andrew  Carnegie's  millions  ever  built 
"will  never  give  a  man  a  clean  heart.  And  with  all 
these  things,  crime,  divorce,  graft,  war  and  other 
forms  of  wickedness  do  not  seem  to  have  greatly 
decreased.  In  this  land  alone  of  100,000,000  people 
two-thirds  of  them  are  outside  the  pale  of  either  the 
I^rotestant  or  Roman  Catholic  church. 
■  And  then  the  Church  herself  needs  more  red  cor- 
puscle's in  heTl)ro6d.  The  spirit  of  the  world  with 
its  lusts  has  crept  into  the  Church  and  eaten  out  a 
good  deal  of  her  heart.  The  Church  has  really  been 
an  "  army  of  occupation  "  instead  of  an  "  army  of 
conquest.'*  Instead  of  marching  out  against  the 
enemy  "  like  an  army  terrible  with  banners  "  she  has 
been  hiding  in  church  trenches  and  behind  ec- 
clesiastical embattlements  and  singing,  "  Hold  the 
Fort." 

The  story  is  told  by  Charles  Stelzle  of  a  couple  of 
Irishmen  travelling  toward  a  certain  town  and  in- 
quiring at  three  diflFerent  times  along  the  way  how 
far  it  was  to  their  destination  and  being  told  each 
time  that  it  was  about  six  miles;  one  of  them  turned 
to  the  other  and  said,  "  Well,  be^o^rra^  we're  holdin' 
our  own,  anyhow." 

Do  you  know  that  all  our  churches  have  been 
making  for  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
less  than  three  per  cent  of  a  net  gain  in  her  member- 
ship. Now  what  does  this  mean  from  the  standpoint 
of  population  ? 

Let  me  draw  for  you  an  imaginary  chart  of  100 


18  EVANGELISM 

black  squares,  each  square  representing  1,000,000 
people,  and  you  will  have  the  population  of  the 
United  States.  Now  paint  24  of  these  squares  white 
and  form  a  cross  out  of  them  in  the  middle  of  the 
chart  and  you  will  have  the  membership  of  the 
Protestant  churches  of  this  land.  Now  paint  15 
more  of  the  black  squares  grey  and  place  them  at 
the  bottom  of  the  cross  and  you  will  have  the 
membership  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church  of  this 
land.  This  leaves  61  of  the  squares  black  and  still 
unevangelized.  Now  bear  in  mind  that  a  black 
square  of  new  material  (1,000,000  souls)  is  being 
added  every  year  by  immigration  alone,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  increase  through  birth;  at  least 
this  has  been  the  story  for  the  last  dozen  years,  and 
while  foreign  immigration  has  fallen  off  at  the 
present  because  of  the  war,  it  will  come,  unless  re- 
stricted, in  as  vigorous  a  fashion  as  ever  now  that 
the  war  is  over.  Then  remember  that  less  than 
500,000  have  been  won  to  Christ  by  our  Protestant 
churches  on  the  average  for  a  large  number  of  years, 
viz.,  about  one-half  of  one  black  square,  while  an 
additional  200,000  per  year  represents  the  gain  made 
by  the  Catholic  church,  and  then  tell  me  as  a  simple 
problem  in  mathematics  how  long  at  this  rate  it  is 
going  to  take  us  to  evangelize  the  United  States. 
In  view  of  this  and  many  times  as  much  which 
could  be  said,  I  am  sure  that  no  man  could  be 
charged  with  extravagance  if  he  were  to  say  that 
the   importance   of   a   thoughtful    and   thorough 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  19 

evangelism  for  this  day  cannot  be  overestimated, 
and  that  every  form  of  effective  and  legitimate 
evangelistic  work  should  be  encouraged  and  have 
the  heartiest  approval  and  co-operation  of  every 
Christian  and  especially  of  every  minister  in  this 
land. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  EVANGELISM 

Now  with  this  somewhat  apologetic  portion  at  an 
end,  I  want  now  briefly  to  review  the  history  of 
evangelism,  which  may  be  conveniently  grouped 
under  three  main  heads:  the  Evangelism  of  the 
Prophets,  of  the  Apostles  and  Early  Church  and  of 
Modern  Times. 

I.  The  Evangelism  of  the  Prophets.  1500 
B.C.-30  A.D. 

The  history  of  God's  people  after  all  is  little  more 
than  the  story  of  revival.  The  revival  in  the  sense 
of  a  protracted  meeting  or  an  evangelistic  campaign 
is  of  comparatively  recent  origin,  but  all  of  the 
special  stirrings  and  epochal  events  which  belong 
to  the  history  of  God's  dealing  with  His  people  may 
in  a  very  proper  sense  be  called  revivals. 

Israel's  whole  experience  was  one  of  declension 
and  revival.  At  times  their  religious  life  sank  so 
low  that  hope  almost  expired.  But  there  was  always 
"  a  remnant  that  feared  the  Lord,"  and  in  the  times 
of  Joshua  and  Samuel  and  David  and  other  leaders 
and  prophets  there  was  a  coming  back,  a  return 


20  EVANGELISM 

unto  the  Lord  characterized  with  great  religious 
fervour. 

Perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  of  these  revivals 
of  religion,  and  the  one  which  more  than  any  other 
has  a  touch  of  modernism  about  it,  was  the  one 
held  under  the  leadership  of  Ezra  immediately  upon 
the  return  of  the  people  from  their  Assyrian  cap- 
tivity. It  was  an  open-air  meeting.  The  people 
filled  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  and  Ezra  got  up  in 
a  wooden  pulpit  and  read  the  law  of  Moses  and 
preached  from  morning  till  the  hour  of  noon.  The 
people  were  mightily  stirred.  They  repented  of 
their  sins  and  proved  their  repentance  by  squaring 
up  with  the  Lord. 

But  Israel  was  as  fickle  as  a  weather-wane.  It*s  a 
wonder  that  God  put  up  with  them  as  long  as  He 
did.  They  played  the  harlot  continually.  And 
from  the  time  of  Malachi  until  John  the  Baptist 
there  was  no  warning  voice  to  call  them  back  to 
God. 

Then  came  John  the  Baptist,  the  wilderness 
preacher,  "  with  the  spirit  of  Elijah  burning  in  his 
breast  and  thundering  in  his  voice."  He  had  back- 
bone compared  with  which  Ulysses'  bow  was  a  wil- 
low twig.  He  never  trimmed  his  sails  to  win  the 
friendship  of  the  crowd  that  had  the  money  and 
the  influence.  If  all  the  preachers  whose  lips  have 
been  padlocked  by  fear  and  whose  voices  have  been 
choked  by  expediency  and  a  man-pleasing  spirit 
would  stand  up  and  make  a  confession  of  it,  we 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  21 

would  know  one  of  the  reasons  why  the  Church  has 
gone  off  and  played  the  harlot  with  the  world  as 
much  as  she  has.  But  John  the  Baptist  thundered 
against  sin  and  cried  out,  **  Repent!  Repent!"  and 
"  there  went  out  to  him  Jerusalem  and  all  Judea 
and  all  the  region  round  about  Jordan,  and  were 
baptized  of  him  in  Jordan,  confessing  their  sins." 

II.  The  Evangelism  of  the  Apostles  and  the 
Early  Church,  33  A.D.-350. 

The  revival  under  John  the  Baptist  closed  what 
may  properly  be  called  '*  Old  Testament  Evangel- 
ism '*  or  the  "  Evangelism  of  the  Prophets,"  and 
with  the  revival  at  Pentecost  wa»  ushered  in  what 
may  as  properly  be  called  New  Testament  Evangel- 
ism or  the  Evangelism  of  the  Apostles  and  the  early 
Church. 

On  the  day  of  Pentecost  3,000  people  were  added 
to  the  church.  This  was  Christianity's  Inaugural 
Day.  Peter's  sermon  furnishes  a  good  model  for 
an  evangelistic  preacher. 

The  era  of  church  history  ushered  in  by  Pente- 
cost was  one  of  great  missionary  and  evangelistic 
activity.  In  recording  the  acts  of  the  Apostles  the 
writer  had  little  more  to  do  than  to  tell  the  story 
of  revivals.  We  read  in  one  place  that  the  number 
added  to  the  church  was  5,000;  in  another  place 
that  a  great  company  of  priests  were  obedient  to 
the  faith;  again  at  Berea,  that  many  of  the  Jews 


22  EVANGELISM 

believed  and  of  the  honourable  women  who  were 
Greeks.  And  everywhere  the  Gentiles  poured  into 
the  Kingdom  until  Demetrius  complained  that 
throughout  all  Asia  Paul  had  evangelized  and  turned 
away  much  people. 

One  of  the  most  notable  of  these  revival  occasions 
was  that  of  the  work  of  Philip  in  thd  city'  of 
Samaria.  In  the  twenty-first  chapter  of  Acts  Philip 
is  called  an  "  evangelist "  and  in  the  eighth  chapter 
of  Acts  we  are  told  how  Philip  went  down  from 
Jerusalem  to  the  city  of  Samaria  to  preach  Christ. 
It  seems  as  though  the  whole  city  was  profoundly 
stirred.  Not  according  to  modern  newspaper  report 
(for  it  is  quite  easy  to  stir  a  city  that  way),  but 
according  to  the  Word  of  God.  Newspapers  can  lie 
worse  than  a  gas-meter  when  it  comes  to  reporting 
a  revival.  Even  a  religious  journal  recently  re- 
ported in  black-face  capitals  "  98,000  conversions  " 
in  a  single  campaign  of  a  few  weeks!  But  Philip 
must  have  preached  to  great  crowds,  and  when  the 
news  of  the  mighty  outpouring  of  God's  Spirit 
reached  Jerusalem  Peter  and  John  hurried  down  to 
render  every  possible  assistance  in  caring  for  the 
tremendous  needs  of  the  campaign. 

The  evangelistic  experience  of  the  early  church 
in  the  post-Apostolic  age  was  no  less  remarkable. 
It  was  only  by  a  succession  of  revivals,  and  this 
too  in  the  face  of  direst  persecution,  that  the  glorious 
history  we  are  privileged  to  write  today  was  made 
possible. 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  28 

Then  came  the  days  of  superstition  and  sin  and 
the  long  centuries  of  spiritual  darkness  until  the 
sound  of  Luther's  hammer  on  the  Wittenberg 
cathedral  door  aroused  'the  slumbering  Church  out 
of  her  night  of  lethargy  and  her  indifference  to  the 
corrupt  ethics  and  pagan  practices  of  the  day 
which  had  eaten  out  her  very  vitals  while  she  slept. 

III.  Evangelism  in  Modem  Times,  1300- 1920. 
Here  we  may  conveniently  find  six  sub-divisions, 
or  sub-periods. 

(a)  T\he  Reformation  Period,  1300- 15 50 

These  were  the  days  of  John  Wicliffe  and  John 
Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague.  Mighty  martyrs  of 
whom  the  world  was  not  worthy!  Then  came 
Martin  Luther,  the  giant  of  the  Reformation  who 
"  shook  the  papal  throne  to  its  very  foundation." 
Then  a  little  later,  as  the  influence  of  the  movement 
overspread  all  the  land,  came  John  Calvin  and  John 
Knox  and  John  Taussen  and  John  Laski,  all  within 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  uader  their  re- 
markable ministries  the  church  was  blessed  with 
continuous  revival  and  the  principles  of  the  evan- 
gelical faith  were  established  in  the  countries  now 
Protestant. 

If  the  evangelism  of  the  Reformation  period  is 
to  be  distinguished  in  any  way  from  that  of  later 
periods  of  evangelistic  activity  it  must  be  seen  in  ^  , 
this^  that  the  evangelism  of  the  Reformation  times 


24  EVANGELISM 

i 

was  educational  rather  than  what  is  popularly  known 
as  revivalistic. 

However,  we  must  guard  against  the  mistake  of 
considering  the  Reformation  Revival  a  mere  con- 
troversy of  theological  opinioTrT)r-  only  a  struggle 
for  the  right  and  liberty  of  individual  conscience. 
These  things  it  indeed  was;  but  it  was  more.  In 
fact,  the  Reformation  sprang  from  ah  agonizing 
desire  to  know  the  true  way  of  life  and  the  whole 
movement  was  animated  and  nerved  by  spiritual 
experiences  of  conviction  of  sin  and  the  joy  of  con- 
version; and  never,  unless  it  was  in  the  early  days 
of  Christendom,  had  there  been  a  deeper  or  more 
wide-spread  concern  about  the  soul's  personal  re- 
lation to  God,  and  souls  were  converted  by  the 
thousands.  It  was  an  educational  revival;  but  it 
was  more. 

(b)   The  Revival  of  the  Seventeenth  Century, 
1 600- 1 675 

The  Reformation  Period  was  followed  not  long 
after  by  a  series  of  remarkable  evangelistic  visita- 
tions in  Great  Britain.  These  were  the  days  of 
Baxter  and  Bunyan  and  John  Livingston. 

In  Scotland  we  read  of  the  great  Stewarton  re- 
vival. This  the  unbelievers  sneeringly  called,  "  The 
Stewarton  Sickness.'*  Five  years  later  in  1630  oc- 
curred that  remarkable  demonstration  of  divine 
power  in  the  church  of  Shotts  when  young  John 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  25 

Livingston  preached  and  500  souls  were  soundly 
converted.  From  this  meeting  many  eminent 
Christians  in  later  years  dated  the  beginning  of  their 
religious  experience. 

Almost  at  the  same  time  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able outpourings  of  the  Spirit  on  record  took  place 
in  the  north  of  Ireland  in  the  province  of  Ulster; 
while  in  England  the  work  of  Baxter  in  Kidder- 
minster has  been  one  of  the  religious  wonders  of 
succeeding  centuries. 

i 
(c)  The  Great  Awakening,  172 5- 1750 

The  next  period  is  usually  known  in  history  as 
"  The  Great  Awakening,"  and  sometimes  as  "  The 
Revival  of  the  Eighteenth  Century."  It  sprang  up 
almost  simultaneously  on  both  sides  of  the  water. 
It  was  the  time  of  the  Wesleys,  of  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards and  George  Whitefield. 

Another  spiritual  decline  had  laid  hold  on  the 
church,  and  these  intellectual  and  spiritual  giants 
came  at  a  time  when  it  seemed  that  religion  had 
almost  died  out  of  the  hearts  of  men.  This  was 
true  not  alone  of  the  people  in  general  but  the 
religious  knowledge  and  morals  of  the  Church  her- 
self including  the  clergy  had  sunk  to  the  lowest  ebb. 
These  were  also  the  days  of  other  giants — infidel 
giants — like  Hobbes,  Bolingbroke,  Hume,  Voltaire 
and  Rousseau,  the  influence  of  whose  writings 
swept  over  England  and  the  Continental  nations 


/ 


26  EVANGELISM 

"  like  a  sirocco,  withering  not  only  the  sentiments 
of  religion,  but  the  instincts  of  humanity,  and  sub- 
verting at  last  in  common  ruin  the  altar,  the  throne, 
and  the  moral  protections  of  domestic  life."  Re- 
ligion was  only  mentioned  to  be  laughed  at. 

In  America  it  was  little  if  any  better.  In  the 
words  of  Samuel  Blair,  "  Religion  lay  a-dying  and 
ready  to  expire  its  last  breath  of  life.''  The  pas- 
sage of  the  famous  Half  Way  Covenant  by  the 
Synod  of  all  the  churches  of  the  Massachusetts 
colonies  by  which  unregenerate  men  were  admitted 
to  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  consequently  to  the  minis- 
try, no  doubt  largely  accounts  for  the  appalling 
moral  and  spiritual  decay  of  the  times.  But  with 
this  and  other  causes  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  the 
student  of  religious  history  is  familiar. 

It  seemed  as  if  God  had  forsaken  His  church 
everywhere.  But  the  dawning  of  the  morning  came 
and  God  in  great  mercy  manifested  Himself  in  tre- 
mendous blessing  to  His  people.  The  wonderful 
work  of  this  Great  Awakening  might  be  said  to  have 
begun  under  Jonathan  Edwards  at  Northampton, 
Mass.,  in  1734,  although  the  ministry  of  the  Ten- 
nants  in  New  Jersey  had  been  signally  blessed  with 
large  revival  results  during  the  three  years  prior  to 
this  date. 

The  Northampton  revival  spread  over  all  the  state 
of  Massachusetts.  Then  it  reached  out  into  Con- 
necticut and  all  the  surrounding  territory.  "  Souls 
came,"   said  Jonathan  Edwards,  "  as  it  were  by 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  27 

flocks  to  Jesus  Christ."  The  account  of  this  re- 
vivaTTas  written  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  reached 
London  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  John  Wesley, 
who  read  it  as  he  walked  from  London  to 
Oxford,  and  he  wrote  in  his  Journal,  "  Surely 
this  is  the  Lord^s  doing  and  it  is  marvellous  in 
our  eyes." 

But  not  until  the  prince  of  evangelists  and  mighty 
pulpit  orator,  George  Whitefield,  arrived  in  Phila- 
delphia in  the  latter  part  of  1739  did  the  Great 
Awakening  begin  to  show  itself  in  the  fulness  of 
its  power.  In  the  early  part  of  this  same  year 
Whitefield  had  inaugurated  his  field  or  open-air 
meetings  in  England.  He  was  listened  to  breath- 
lessly by  tens  of  thousands  of  people  who  evidenced 
their  interest  and  concern  by  the  white  gutters  made 
by  the  tears  trickling  down  their  black  and  un- 
washed faces  fresh  from  the  coal  pits. 

When  Whitefield  departed  for  this  country  he  was 
succeeded  by  John  Wesley,  and  what  God  wrought 
under  Whitefield  in  America  He  wrought  with 
similar  demonstrations  of  power  in  England  under 
Wesley.  Out  of  Wesley's  evangelistic  labours  came 
the  great  Methodist  Episcopal  church  with  its 
splendid  history  of  revival  experience. 

The  career  of  Whitefield  in  America  is  one  of  the 
shining  spots  in  American  church  history.  His  fame 
always  spread  before  him  and  vast  multitudes 
always  hung  upon  his  words.  It  is  said  that  30,000 
people  heard  him  deliver  his  farewell  speech  on  the 


28  EVANGELISM 

Boston  Common.  He  preached  on  an  average 
nearly  three  times  a  day  and  the  scene  of  his  labours 
reached  all  the  way  from  Savannah  in  the  South  to 
Boston  in  the  North.  Everywhere  he  went  multi- 
tudes sought  and  found  the  Lord. 

The  revival  fire  spread  of  course  to  towns  where 
Whitefield  could  not  go.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  by 
the  end  of  1742  there  was  scarcely  a  parish  in  all 
the  colonies  from  north  to  south  which  had  not  in 
some  measure  been  visited  by  revival  grace,  and  it 
is  estimated  that  at  least  30,000  of  the  estimated 
350,000  population  of  New  England  were  born 
again  by  the  transforming  power  of  the  Spirit  of 
God. 

(d)  The  Nineteenth  Century  Revival, 
1 800- 1 850 

The  next  revival  period  furnishes  a  piece  of 
glorious  and  memorable  history  for  the  American 
church.  Showers  of  blessing  fell  across  the  ocean 
as  well.  It  was  the  time  of  Rowland  Hill  in  Eng- 
land, of  the  Haldane  brothers  in  Scotland  and  of 
Charles  of  Bala  in  Wales.  But  it  was  in  America 
that  the  full  downpour  of  spiritual  refreshing  came. 
It  was  during  this  period  that  America  wrote  some 
of  her  most  brilliant  names  on  the  scroll  of  church 
history;  names  like  those  of  Backus,  Nettleton, 
Lyman  Beecher,  Finney,  Kirk,  Baker,  Asbury^ 
Cartwright,  Otterbein  and  Albright. 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  29 

For  almost  a  half-century  this  people  had  been 
religiously  in  a  truly  deplorable  condition.  It  had 
been  a  time  of  great  political  unrest.  The  Revolu- 
tionary War  had  come  and  both  clergy  and  people 
had  been  absorbed  in  its  issue.  Unitarianism  had 
spread  to  an  alarming  degree.  And  to  complete  our 
spiritual  degradation  a  wave  of  French  and  Ger- 
man infidelity,  as  might  be  expected,  had  fairly 
deluged  the  land. 

But  while  the  enemies  of  truth  were  exulting,  the 
Lord  in  great  mercy  lifted  up  a  standard  against 
them.  Throughout  every  part  of  the  country  re- 
vivals sprang  up  almost  simultaneously.  It  was 
during  this  period,  in  1831,  that  the  Chatham  Street 
Theatre  in  New  York  City  was  purchased  and  dedi- 
cated to  the  service  of  God  and  for  twenty-seven 
successive  nights  Charles  Finney  preached  there  to 
immense  audiences.  It  is  useless,  however,  to  men- 
tion particular  incidents  or  communities.  Every- 
where it  was  the  same  story  of  the  triumph  of  grace 
and  during  some  years  as  many  as  250,000  were 
added  yearly  to  the  church. 

JThe  Revival  of   1800  has  some  peculiarly  dis- 
tinguishing characteristics. 

(a)  It  repeated  itself  annually  in  hundreds  of 
communities  and  churches  for  a  period  of  almost 
twenty-five  years. 

(b)  It  was  carried  on  largely  by  the  pastors  with- 
out the  aid  of  travelling  evangelists. 


30  EVANGELISM 

(c)  It  was  exceptionally  free  from  abnormal 
excitement. 

(d)  It  was  marked  by  an  unusual  degree  of  per- 
manency in  results. 

(e)  It  marked  the  inauguration  of  many  of  our 
great  Missionary  and  Philanthropic  enterprises. 

(f)  It  was  carried  on  in  large  part  along  de- 
nominational lines.  Among  the  Congregationalists 
was  Finney;  among  the  Presbyterians  were  Nettle- 
ton,  Kirk  and  Daniel  Baker;  among  the  Baptists, 
Knapp  and  Swan;  among  the  Methodists,  Asbury, 
William  Taylor,  Peter  Cartwright,  James  Caughey 
and  the  eccentric  Lorenzo  Dow;  among  the  United 
Brethren,  Otterbein  and  Boehme;  and  among  the 
Evangelical  Association,  Jacob  Albright. 

(e)  nihe  ^Revival  of  1857 

The  next  period  of  revival  (185 7- 1860)  was 
brief,  unique  and  tremendously  powerful. 

Certain  conditions  had  again  prevailed  which 
made  the  situation  peculiarly  favourable  for  the 
great  revival  that  followed.  Among  these  conditions 
were  the  intense  political  excitement  consequent 
upon  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question;  the  dis- 
appointment due  to  the  failure  of  certain  wide- 
spread prophecies  of  the  Lord's  Second  Coming, 
which  was  productive  once  more  of  great  spiritual 
declension;  and  the  deep  and  wide-spread  business 
depression  due  to  the  severe  financial  panic  of  1857 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  31 

following  close  upon  a  prosperity  unprecedented  in 
American  history. 

At  the  suggestion  of  Jeremiah  Lanphier,  a  city 
missionary  of  the  Fulton  Street  Reformed  Dutch 
Church  in  New  York  City,  a  small  room  was 
thrown  open  for  weekly  prayer  at  the  noon  hour. 
This  was  in  the  very  heart  of  the  business  drift  of 
that  great  city.  The  first  meeting  numbered  six; 
the  second,  twenty  and  the  third  forty;  then  the 
meeting  was  made  daily  and  not  only  that  room  but 
two  others,  the  largest  in  the  church,  were  packed. 
It  was  a  meeting  only  for  prayer  and  testimony. 
Similar  meetings  multiplied  all  over  the  city  and 
spread  to  other  cities  until  there  was  scarcely  an 
important  town  in  all  the  United  States  that  did 
not  have  its  Business  Men*s  Daily  Prayer  Meeting. 

Men  and  women  needed  Christ  and  they  were 
hungry  for  Him.  During  the  first  year  of  this 
unusual  visitation  of  divine  grace  it  is  estimated 
that  500,000  souls  sought  and  found  peace  through 
the  Christ  of  God.  The  work  spread  abroad  to 
many  countries  in  Europe  and  there  is  little  if  any 
doubt  that  the  great  revivals  which  visited  England 
and  Scotland  and  Wales  and  Ireland  during  these 
eventful  years  received  their  impulse  from  what 
God  was  so  wonderfully  doing  in  America. 

(f)  Late  Modem  Revivals,  18601920 
Wc  have  opportunity  only  for  the  mere  mention 


32  EVANGELISM 

of  some  of  the  outstanding  figures  in  the  modeni 
revival  movements  which  have  been  so  numerous 
in  this  and  other  lands. 

Mr.  Bennett  in  a  volume  entitled,  "  Great  Revival 
in  the  Southern  Armies,"  gives  us  a  splendid  ac- 
count of  a  spiritual  awakening  among  the  Con- 
federate soldiers  resulting  in  the  conversion  of 
150,000  during  the  period  of  the  war. 

It  was  about  i860  that  A.  B.  Earle  came  into 
prominence  as  an  evangelist  labouring  chiefly  in 
union  services.  The  more  conspicuous  work  of 
E.  P.  Hammond  began  about  the  same  time.  In 
1873  Moody  and  Sankey,  comparatively  unknown 
in  America,  went  to  Great  Britain.  After  their  re- 
markable success  in  that  land  they  returned  to  this 
country  and  began  that  glorious  evangelistic  minis- 
try at  which  the  world  will  never  cease  to  marvel. 

Closely  associated  with  Mr.  Moody  were  B.  Fay 
Mills  and  J.  Wilbur  Chapman,  who  gave  to  us  what 
became  known  as  the  City  Simultaneous  Evangelis- 
tic Campaign,  in  which  a  city  was  divided  into  dis- 
tricts with  an  evangelist  preaching  in  each  district 
and  in  which  there  was  usually  a  noon-day  meeting 
in  the  downtown  central  district  for  all  the  city. 

Then  came  the  remarkable  work  of  Reuben  A. 
Torrey,  who  with  Charles  Alexander  carried  the 
Gospel  around  the  world.  Mr.  Alexander  later 
joined  Dr.  Chapman  and  God  wonderfully  used 
these  two  princes  of  evangelistic  work  on  this  as 
well  as  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 


ITS  MEANING  AND  HISTORY  33 

In  the  meantime  we  have  had  Rodney  Smith,  the 
Gipsy,  come  over  to  us  from  England  with  his 
persuasive  voice  and  his  burning  spirit  and  prac- 
tically all  of  the  larger  cities  of  the  land  have  been 
blessed  abundantly  under  his  powerful  ministry. 

In  these  days  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
evangelistic  field  is  Billy  Sunday,  whose  work  in 
many  respects  is  phenomenal  and  who  has  preached 
nightly  for  ten  weeks  in  all  the  larger  cities  of  the 
United  States  to  audiences  ranging  from  5,000  to 
15,000  people. 

Surely  with  a  history  like  this  we  have  just  fin- 
ished reviewing,  no  candid  or  thoughtful  student 
of  God's  methods  for  translating  this  world  into 
the  kingdom  of  His  dear  Son  will  ever  doubt  the 
wisdom  or  the  worth  of  the  special  evangelistic 
season. 


II 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  AND  ITS 
HISTORICAL  JUSTIFICATION 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  AND  ITS 
HISTORICAL  JUSTIFICATION 

I.    Introductory  Remarks. 

I.   The   demand   for   a   proper   rationale   of   revival 
method. 

II.    How  this  Rationale  is  to  be  found. 

1.  In  the  law  of  progress. 

(a)  Growth  by  impulse  seen  in  nature. 

(b)  Springtime  a  revival. 

(c)  So    all    moral,    civic    and    humanitarian 

movements  have  their  ebb  and  flow. 

2.  In  the  nature  of  man. 

(a)  His  unspiritual  tendency. 

(b)  His  susceptibility  to  environment  and  the 

appeal  of  the  carnal  nature. 

(c)  His    need    of   arrested    attention    and   of 

encouragement  to  definite  decision. 

(d)  His  need  of  concentrated  and  continued 

impression. 

3.  In  the  atmosphere  created  by  revival  eiforts. 

(a)  This  atmosphere  defined. 

(b)  Its  value. 

(c)  How  produced. 

4.  In  the  value  of  the  unusual, 

(a)  The  wearisomeness  of  routine. 

(b)  The   attractiveness   of   the   new   and  the 

extraordinary. 

(c)  How  presented  by  revival  methods. 

III.    Historical  justification  of  the  Revival  as  seen; 

1.  In  the  unusual  number  of  conversions  and  addi- 

tions to  church  membership  as  a  result  of  re- 
vival effort. 

2.  In  the  permanency  of  the  work, 

3.  In  the  earnest,  active  character  of  such  converts. 

4.  In  the  persistence  of  the  Church  in  calling  for  this 

particular  form  of  work. 


II 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  AND  ITS 
HISTORICAL  JUSTIFICATION 

CERTAINLY  no  history  of  the  Christian 
Church  would  be  in  any  sense  adequate  to 
explain  its  unrivalled  influence  in  civilization 
or  even  its  own  survival  throughout  the  centuries 
which  did  not  take  into  full  account  the  unique  and 
conspicuous  place  which  the  revival  has  occupied 
in  the  economy  of  God  for  the  redemption  of  the 
world. 

The  exceptional  and  the  extraordinary  have  al- 
ways played  a  large  part  in  the  great  movements  for 
the  on-swinging  betterment  of  the  world.  This  is 
especially  true  of  religious  movements. 

It  was  a  strange  and  novel  thing  in  the  revival 
of  the  thirteenth  century  under  Francis  of  Assisi 
to  see  this  holy  man  and  his  followers  go  singing 
over  the  hills  and  through  the  valleys  of  sunny 
Italy.  Savonarola  certainly  did  "  go  after  things  " 
in  a  most  unusual  fashion  in  the  days  of  the  Floren- 
tine revival.  No  wonder  church  authority,  being 
such  as  it  was,  silenced  his  fearless  voice  in  the 
flames  that  licked  up  his  blood  in  the  Square  of 
San  Marco  close  by  the  palace  and  the  church. 

37 


38  EVANGELISM 

The  nailing  of  the  ninety-five  theses  to  the 
Wittenberg  church  door  and  the  outspoken 
championship  of  lay-rights  in  Luther's  day;  the 
open-air  preaching  and  the  ordination  of  lay- 
preachers  by  the  laying  on  of  Wesley's  hands  in 
his  day  were  so  novel  and  astonishing  that  the 
Romish  church  tried  to  burn  Luther  and  the  Angli- 
can church  closed  its  doors  against  the  Wesleys. 
For  a  time  the  American  church  treated  Whitefield 
much  as  the  Anglican  church  treated  Wesley,  many 
of  whom,  as  Wesley  would  say,  would  rather  not 
see  men  saved  at  all  than  saved  outside  the 
"  ordinary  channels  of  grace." 

The  modern  revival  while  denouncing  severely  the 
worldliness  and  sin  of  the  church,  as  did  the  re- 
vival in  the  days  of  Luther  and  Savonarola  and 
Knox  and  Wesley  and  other  great  reformers,  differs 
very  largely  from  the  efforts  of  earlier  centuries 
in  that  they  are  not  reformatory  movements;  that 
is  to  say,  it  does  not  set  itself  against  the  established 
doctrines  and  ecclesiastically  sanctioned  practices  of 
the  Church.  Thanks  to  the  heroic  work  of  the 
mighty  saints  just  mentioned  and  others  like  them, 
the  modern  revival  can  stand  for  the  church  pretty 
much  as  it  is,  except  of  course  for  the  extreme 
worldliness  that  has  eaten  into  its  heart  and  robbed 
it  of  so  much  of  its  vitality  and  its  power. 

All  this  being  true,  together  with  the  fact  that 
revivalism  today  stands  distinctly  for  one  thing,  the 
calling  of  the  individual  to  salvation  through  faith 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  39 

in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Church  in  general  has  put  its 
stamp  of  approval  upon  this  particular  style  of  work. 
It  is  quite  the  usual  thing  in  these  days  for  the 
churches  of  our  towns  and  cities  to  unite  in  a  cam- 
paign of  evangelistic  effort  and  call  jointly  to  the 
leadership  of  the  work  some  one  of  the  numerous 
men  throughout  the  country  who  feel  led  of  God 
to  do  this  particular  kind  of  work. 

REASONS  FOR  REVIVAL  METHODS 

And  yet  there  are  large  numbers  in  all  our 
churches  today  who  are  strongly  opposed  to  any 
participation  whatever  in  the  ordinary  evangelistic 
campaign.  This  is  due  somewhat  to  the  excessive 
abuses  which  the  work  itself  has  suffered.  It  is 
due  more  largely  perhaps  to  temperamental  reasons, 
but  perhaps  most  of  all  to  the  failure  to  provide  one- 
self with  a  proper  rationale  for  revival  methods, — 
the  legitimate  reasons  for  the  same. 

Such  a  rationale  will  go  far  toward  relieving  tem- 
peramental prejudice  and  toward  overbalancing  to  a 
very  large  extent  objections,  whether  founded  upon 
the  shortcomings  of  the  work  itself  or  the  excep- 
tional and  sometimes  novel  procedure  in  such  work 
to  which  not  a  few  are  inclined  to  be  averse. 

I.    This  Rationale  is  to  he  found  first  of  all 
in  the  Natural  Law  of  Progress 

All  progress  is  in  fact  through  a  revival.  No- 
where is  advance  ever  made  through  a  monotonous 


40  EVANGELISM 

and  unbroken  continuity.  Everywhere  we  find  the 
ebb  and  the  flow  of  the  tide.  As  one  wave  spends 
its  strength  and  recedes  another  is  always  ready  to 
rush  in  with  fresh  vigour  and  increased  power. 

The  whole  history  of  civilization,  in  the  realm  of 
national  life,  in  commerce  and  in  politics,  in  the 
sphere  of  science  and  learning  of  every  kind,  bears 
witness  to  this  law.  Depression  is  always  succeeded 
by  revival. 

The  same  is  true  in  nature.  No  life  is  ever  main- 
tained at  the  same  level.  If  it  were,  "  then  Nature 
ought  to  perfect  her  growth  in  the  scorching  of  an 
eternal  sun,  or  in  the  drenching  of  an  everlasting 
rain,  and  flowers  ought  to  stand  from  age  to  age 
as  changeless  as  stone." 

What  is  springtime  but  a  revival  in  nature?  So 
too  is  the  revival  the  springtime  of  religion.  And 
as  in  nature  the  gnarled  and  twisted  oak  renews  its 
youth  and  every  hill  and  valley  blushes  with  new 
life  and  power,  so  the  life  of  the  Church  in  revival 
times  bursts  forth  into  vigorous  activity,  takes  on 
anew  the  beauty  of  His  perfection  and  multiplies 
her  life  in  the  spiritual  regeneration  of  new-born 
souls. 

"  For  ourselves,''  says  Horace  Bushnell,  "  we  are 
obliged  to  confess  that  we  strongly  suspect  that  sort 
of  religion  which  has  no  time  of  special  flood,  no 
temporary  and  changing  states;  for  we  observe  that 
it  is  only  toward  nothing,  or  about  nothing,  that  we 
always  have  the  same  feeling.    There  is  no  reason 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  41 

to  doubt  that  God,  in  framing  the  plan  and  system 
of  His  spiritual  agencies,  ordained  fluctuations,  that 
He  might  take  advantage  at  intervals  of  novelty,  in 
arresting  and  swaying  the  minds  of  men.  There 
are  the  springtimes  of  His  truth.  There  are  times 
v^hen  He  arouses  the  spiritual  lethargy  of  men  and 
communities,  sways  their  will  to  Himself  by  the  aid 
of  scenes  and  methods  not  ordinary  or  familiar.  It 
is  nothing  derogatory  ito  the  divine  agency  that  the 
spiritual  spring  does  not  remain  perpetual,  for  there 
is  a  progress  in  God's  works,  and  He  goes  on 
through  change  and  many-formed  method  to  ripen 
His  ends.'* 


2.    This  Rationale  is  to  he  found  secondly  in 
the  Nature  of  Man 

That  a  man's  natural  tendencies  and  proclivities 
are  unspiritual  is  universally  recognized  today. 

An  old  woman  living  in  the  backwoods  was 
asked  what  she  thought  of  the  doctrine  of  total  de- 
pravity and  she  replied  that  she  thought  it  was  pretty 
good  doctrine  if  people  would  only  live  up  to  it. 
When  Washington  Gladden  was  asked  if  he  believed 
in  the  doctrine  of  total  depravity,  he  humorously 
replied,  "  Yes,  and  in  some  instances  considerably 
more  than  total." 

We  will  not  tarry  for  argument  here;  one  thing 
is  certain  and  that  is  that  something  has  entered 
into  human  nature  that  has  given  it  a  predisposition 


42  EVANGELISM 

to  ignore  God.  We  are  not  here  to  argue  this  fact 
but  to  recognize  it.  The  law  of  reversion  to  type 
about  which  scientists  so  much  concern  themselves 
is  not  without  a  certain  application  to  man  himself; 
the  principle,^  the  law  of  degeneration  runs  through 
all  nature,  and  as  some  one  has  said,  "  the  easiest 
way  in  the  world  for  a  man  to  go  to  the  devil  is 
just  to  let  himself  go,  and  he  will  arrive." 

Henry  Drummond  put  it  thus :  "  It  is  not 
so  much  that  man  is  going  to  be  lost  but  that  he  is 
already  lost ;  lost  in  a  current  that  is  sure  to  sweep 
him  on  to  death  unless  some  power  mightier  than 
his  own  reaches  down  and  lifts  him  out." 

With  a  tendency  like  this  that  seems  to  inhere  in 
the  very  entering  of  man  into  human  existence,  it 
is  not  strange  that  he  becomes  very  largely  a 
creature  of  his  own  environment.  Contend  as  he 
must  with  the  appeal  of  his  carnal  nature,  sur- 
rounded with  multifarious  influences  for  evil,  his  in- 
terest riveted  very  largely  in  material  things  by  the 
very  struggle  for  existence,  it  ought  not  to  be  a 
thing  of  any  wonder  at  all  that  the  average  man 
should  be  in  need  of  having  his  attention  arrested 
and  of  being  called  to  decision  by  a  definite  act  of 
his  own  will  for  a  religious  life. 

There  is  a  striking  expression  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, which  says :  "  They  meet  with  darkness  in 
the  day  time."  It  is  a  reference  to  the  atrophy  and 
the  decay  of  the  moral  and  spiritual  faculties  of  the 
soul  through  neglect  and  misuse.    It  is  a  truth  that 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  43 

a  man  may,  and  many  do,  give  themselves  up  to 
the  tendencies  and  forces  to  which  we  have  referred 
until  an  appreciation  of  the  things  of  God  seems 
almost  to  have  died  out  within  them.  I  have  seen 
hundreds  of  people  apparently  in  this  condition, 
upon  whom  the  appeal  of  the  Gospel  seemed  to 
make  no  more  impression  than  the  beating  of  a 
feather  upon  an  anvil.  The  light  shines  but  they 
seem  not  to  know  it ;  virtue  beckons  but  they  see  her 
not;  truth  knocks  but  the  sound  falls  upon  ears  that 
are  dead. 

No  wonder  there  is  need  of  attention  being  ar- 
rested in  some  unusual  startling  and  commanding 
way.  Nor  are  we  to  be  surprised  that  often  the 
impression  needs  to  be  a  repeated  one,  a  continued 
and  concentrated  one.  Not  as  a  rule  does  a  Port 
Arthur  or  a  Verdun  yield  to  the  first  attack.  And 
as  a  rule  the  will  of  the  unregenerate  man  is  en- 
trenched behind  embattlements  that  surrender  only 
to  the  hammering  of  repeated  and  -constant  bom- 
bardment. 

I  am  able  to  recall  out  of  my  own  experience 
many  strong-minded  and  influential  people  who  con- 
tinued with  considerable  regularity  their  attendance 
upon  the  evangelistic  meetings  with  seemingly  little 
interest  in  the  salvation  of  their  souls,  but  who,  as 
the  campaign  drew  to  its  close,  after  repeated  im- 
pressions and  constantly  renewed  awakening,  but 
for  which  they  might  have  remained  forever  outside 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  made  the  supreme  and  all- 


44  EVA>^GELISM 

important  decision.  The  protracted  aspect  of  an 
evangelistic  campaign,  it  can  readily  be  seen,  fur- 
nishes opportunity  for  such  an  appeal  and  such  a 
continued  impression  as  no  other  form  of  religious 
work  could  possibly  do. 

3.    The  Third  Rationale  for  Revival  Methods  is 

found  in  the  Atmosphere  which  such  a 

Work' usually  Creates 

A  noted  preacher,  who  had  paid  a  visit  to  such 
a  campaign  on  a  mission  of  inspection,  said,  /*  At 
once  upon  arrival  I  found  myself  in  the  atmosphere 
of  revival,  which  one  who  knows  it  can  never  mis- 
take." 

-..What  is  this  atmosphere?  It  is  not  easy  to 
define.  It  might  be  called  spiritual  environment. 
And  yet  it  is  not  exactly  that.  It  seems  more  than 
anything  else  to  be  that  spiritual  influence  created 
by  the  thoughts  and  feelings  and  dispositions  of 
those  in  attendance  upon  the  service.  It  is  a  well- 
known  saying  that  enthusiasm  is  contagious,  and 
this  is  true  of  every  other  disposition  of  the  human 
soul. 

Successful  solicitors  always  recognize  this,  and 
they  talk  much  about  creating  the  proper  atmos- 
phere before  endeavouring  to  persuade  a  man 
toward  a  favourable  decision.  This  is  just  as  potent 
a  factor  in  revival  effort  as  anywhere  else.  The 
sermon  of  course  has  its  part  in  creating  this  atmos- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  45 

phere,  but  it  is  not  an  indispensable  part.  In  the 
Welsh  revival  there  was  little  or  no  preaching  as 
that  term  is  commonly  used  today,  but  everywhere 
when  people  gathered  for  the  service  there  was  felt 
that  strange  impelling  something  which  subdued  the 
rebellious  spirit,  intensified  conviction  ior  sin, 
pressed  home  the  needs  of  the  soul,  and  con- 
strained men  and  women  to  abandon  themselves  to 
Christ. 

This  belongs  to  the  psychology  of  revival  of  any 
kind,  and  the  successful  evangelist  will  never  fail 
to  appreciate  it.  There  are  times  when  it  is  easy  to  / 
decide  for  Christ,  when  the  very  conditions  with 
which  one  finds  himself  surrounded  so  press  upon  \ 
one  the  concern  of  the  soul  that  it  is  indeed  hard 
not  so  to  decide. 

W^e  need  not  spend  time  in  arguing  the  value  of 
such  an  atmosphere.  When  it  does  not  exist  the 
strongest  sort  of  an  evangelistic  sermon  may  be 
preached  in  the  most  earnest  and  convincing  way, 
and  the  apparent  results  at  least  be  largely  and 
sometimes  altogether  inappreciable. 

Many  factors  of  course  in  varying  degree  enter 
into  the  creation  of  this  atmosphere.  A  crowded 
audience  room,  the  influence  of  sermon  and  song 
and  prayer;  manifestations  of  personal  concern,  and 
perhaps  not  least  of  all  the  very  purpose  of  coming 
together  in  such  a  service — all  these  have  their 
share;  but  more  than  to  anything  else  it  is  to  the 
spirit  of  intercessory  prayer  and  the  travail  of  soul 


46  EVANGELISM 

for  the  unsaved  that  this  necessary  and  helpful 
atmosphere  owes  its  existence. 

Read  the  history  of  revival  and  wherever  the 
windows  of  heaven  have  been  opened  and  the  floods 
of  saving  grace  poured  out,  you  will  find  the  as- 
semblies of  Christian  people  to  have  been  permeated 
with  an  agonizing  travail  of  soul  for  the  lost,  and 
the  earnest,  heart-absorbing  spirit  of  intercessory  ap- 
peal to  God  for  the  salvation  of  the  unsaved.  And 
it  is  just  because  the  revival  campaign  is  conducive 
to  the  creation  of  such  an  atmosphere,  as  is  no  other 
method  of  reaching  the  lost,  that  it  furnishes  one 
of  the  most  rational  grounds  for  argument  on  its 
behalf. 

4.  There  is  yet  another  rationale  for  revival 
^methods  worthy  of  attention,  and  that  is  the 
value  of  the  umisu<^l.  With  what  supreme  wis- 
dom did  tlie  Almighty  institute  change  and  variety 
in  all  His  ways  and  all  His  works.  One  can  well 
imagine  the  monotony  of  life  without  this  provision. 
If  the  sun  stood  always  in  the  same  place;  if  the 
tides  were  always  in  or  always  out,  and  the  moon 
and  every  star  hung  fixed  in  the  sky,  and  there  were 
no  recurring  seasons  to  relieve  us  with  their  change 
and  the  new  order  of  things;  if  the  clouds  assumed 
a  uniform  shape  and  hovered  over  us  always  in  the 
same  spot;  if  every  leaf  on  every  tree  were  shaped 
ahke,  and  every  bird  was  like  the  other,  and  all 
whistled  the  same  song;  if  the  infinite  variety  of 
shape  and  tone  and  colour  and  expression  which 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  47 

God  has  poured  into  His  creation  with  such  lavish 
hand  had  been  made  in  every  instance  to  conform  to 
one  rigid  design  the  whole  universe  would  have  lost 
the  soul  of  its  loveliness,  and  man  would  have  cried 
for  relief  from  a  prison  house  like  that. 

It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  there  should 
be  a  special  attractiveness  to  man  in  the  new,  the 
novel,  the  surprising,  the  exceptional,  the  extraor- 
dinary and  the  unusual.  AlLpeople  tire  of  same- 
ness. Recognizing  this  the  wise  pastor  will  intro- 
duce the  element  of  variety  into  all  his  services  as 
much  as  possible. 

Now,  it  is  because  the  evangelistic  meeting  pre- 
sents such  unusual  opportunity  for  something  dif- 
ferent, and  something  unusual  that  you  find  in  it 
this  further  ground  for  its  justification.  The  evan- 
gelist comes  with  a  new  personality,  a  new  voice, 
and  a  new  style  of  approach;  he  inaugurates  new 
methods,  and  he  can  handle  the  situation  in  a  way 
not  always  wise  for  the  pastor  to  pursue.  When 
the  meeting  is  union  in  character  the  large  audiences, 
the  large  chorus  choir,  and  the  many  special  features 
made  possible  by  the  occasion  all  furnish  the  evan- 
gelist with  an  opportunity  for  a  style  of  work  which 
is  especially  attractive  for  the  reasons  already  men- 
tioned. 


THE  HISTORICAL  JUSTIFICATION  OF  THE  REVIVAL 

This  rationalistic  deduction  concerning  the  legiti- 


48  EVANGELISM 

macy  of  the  revival  is  substantiated  by  the  historical 
justification  of  the  revival  as  evidenced  by  its 
results.  This  is  to  be  seen  particularly  in  four 
ways. 

I.    By  the  Unusual  Number  of  Conversions  and 

Additions  to  Church  Membership  as  a 

Result  of  Revival  Effort 

That  a  goodly  porttion  of  the  numerical  increase 
of  the  church  across  the  years  that  have  gone  has 
been  brought  into  it  by  revival  effort  any  candid 
investigator  will  candidly  admit. 

Any  one  who  has  the  slightest  inclination  to  doubt 
the  truth  of  such  a  statement  can  find  ample  proof 
of  the  same  by  stepping  into  any  congregation  of 
Christian  people  and  putting  the  test  by  asking  those 
who  made  their  decision  for  Christ  during  some 
kind  of  revival  effort  to  rise.  The  response  is 
always  astonishing.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  on  an  average  four-fifths  of  the  congregation 
will  be  on  its  feet. 

Bishop  Berry  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  church 
was  fair-minded  enough  a  short  while  ago  to  credit 
a  very  large  proportion  of  an  unusually  large  in- 
crease in  the  membership  of  the  churches  of  a  cer- 
tain section  of  the  country  to  the  work  of  a  single 
evangelist. 

A  careful  census  made  by  the  writer  a  few  years 
ago  in  over  fifty  of  the  largest  cities  of  the  United 
States  revealed  the  fact,  upon  the  testimony  gath- 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  49 

ered  by  the  pastors  themselves,  that  by  far  the 
largest  gains  to  church  membership  were  made 
through  the  efforts  of  evangelism,  and  a  kind  of 
evangelism,  by  the  way,  which  more  than  any  other 
has  been  under  the  fire  of  severest  criticism. 

In  this  study  I  had  occasion  to  use  the  chart  on 
the  next  page. 

These  figures  prepared  by  the  Boston  pastors  not 
only  prove  conclusively  what  has  been  said,  but  the 
percentage  of  increase  during  the  year  following  Dr. 
Chapman's  evangelistic  campaign  shows  just  as  con- 
clusively that  his  efforts  left  conditions  better  for 
church  work  than  they  had  been  for  any  ten  years 
prior  to  his  coming. 

I  found  this  very  same  thing  to  be  true  in  every 
city  where  any  campaign  of  evangelism  was  con- 
ducted. Such  testimony  is  tremendous.  In  the 
face  of  it  fair-mindedness  will  never  be  guilty  of  un- 
guarded criticism,  and  least  of  all  will  it  seem  to 
enjoy  its  criticism  even  when  justly  and  guardedly 

made.  , 

Indeed  the  history  of  the  Church,  especially  so  far 
as  its  numerical  increase  is  concerned,  is  the  history 
of  revival.  V^ho  can  read  the  story  of  V^hitefield's 
revival  ministry  and  not  be  thrilled  at  the  mighty 
work  accomplished  as  the  result  of  a  few  years  of 
evangelistic  effort  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century?  Not  less  than  50,000  people  were  hope- 
fully converted.  150  new  Congregational  churches 
were  established;  while  the  Baptist  denomination 


50 


EVANGELISM 


-*3  55 

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Montmrn^^mm^ 

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SOS 

f903mM 

WMml 

S6.&li 

760 

/5^pH 

WMmzz 

^3..2.^ 

390 

tQo.*iW^^^^m 

S/.6 

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55 

/^oA 

S0.2. 

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^ 

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/909  H^H^^^^H^H^H^H 

76-^^ 

/^zA 

Chart  showing  yearly  growth  of  Boston  Protestant 

churches  for  ten  years  compared  with  that 

of  1909,  the  Chapman  year. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  61 

rose  from  a  few  struggling  churches  to  nearly  400 
in  number  with  a  membership  of  30,000. 

There  were  ten  great  revival  years  in  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  (1820-1830)  when 
from  40,000  to  50,000  were  added  almost  yearly  to 
the  churches.  The  three  years  beginning  in  1857 
was  a  period  of  remarkable  revival  activity.  In  one 
city  alone,  Philadelphia,  9,000  members  were  added 
to  the  churches  and  during  the  last  year  of  this 
period,  this  wave  of  revival  grace  which  had  swept 
across  the  ocean  brought  into  the  Welsh  Cal- 
vinistic  church  no  less  than  25,000  members.  And 
this  has  been  the  story  on  down  to  the  present 
time. 

Some  one  has  said,  "  Evangelize  or  fossilize.'* 
Atid  if  you  will  show  me  a  church  where  no  addi- 
tions are  made  upon  confession  of  faith  through- 
out the  year  (and  to  our  deep  regret  it  must  be 
said  that  there  are  some),  I  will  show  you  a  church 
whose  pastor  and  people  either  do  not  believe  in 
evangelistic  work  or  lack  the  concern  or  the  en- 
thusiasm to  undertake  it,  and  where  the  songs  of 
revival  never  peal  forth  and  the  joy  in  heaven  over 
the  one  sinner  that  repents  is  never  heard. 

2.   In  the  Permanency  of  Revival  Results 

Some  people  say,  "Revival  work  doesn't  last." 
Well,  it  has  lasted  with  me  and  I  was  brought  to 
Christ  during  a  revival.     The  same  thing  is  true 


52  EVANGELISM 

with  most  of  you.  The  pastor  of  a  certain  church 
wrote  some  time  ago,  "  During  the  time  I  have  been 
connected  with  this  church  about  550  have  been 
added  to  its  communion,  not  less  than  four-fifths 
of  whom  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  fruits  of  re- 
vivals." It  has  surely  lasted  with  the  members  of 
that  church.  And  it  has  lasted  with  the  millions 
who  are  in  the  church  today,  as  the  evidence  just 
reviewed  abundantly  proves. 

It  is  true  that  many  do  fall  by  the  wayside,  that 
some  men's  hearts  are  like  the  stony  places,  and 
with  som^  the  Word  is  choked.  We  would  expect 
this  even  if  no  parable  of  the  sower  had  ever  fallen 
from  the  lips  of  the  divine  Teacher.  It  is,  however, 
also  true  that  many  fall  from  grace  who  come  into 
the  church  when  no  influence  has  pressed  itself  upon 
them.  It  is  a  question  which  number  is  proportion- 
ately the  larger. 

Church  membership  in  either  case  without  real, 
genuine  conversion  is  likely  to  prove  disastrous,  and 
there  is  too  much  joining  the  church  for  other 
seasons  than  that  which  springs  oiit  of  a  regenerated 
heart. 

I  have  often  thought  that  if  I  had  a  child  of  my 
own  I  would  want  that  he  should  never  need  to 
experience  what  we  understand  by  conversion.  I 
would  always  want  that  he  should  love  his  heavenly 
Father  better  than  his  earthly  one.  But  if  the  time 
ever  came  when  he  wandered  away  from  God  and 
had  his  life  spoiled  with  sin,  I  most  certainly  would 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  53 

earnestly  pray  that  he  might  be  converted  at  some 
time  when  the  church  was  in  the  midst  of  a  revival 
and  the  whole  community  was  at  an  intense  spiritual 
heat,  and  that  he  would  come  smiting  upon  his 
troubled  breast,  crying,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me  a 
sinner,"  and  saying  with  a  broken  and  a  contrite 
heart : 

"Just  as  I  am  without  one  plea, 

But  that  Thy  blood  was  shed  for  me; 
And  that  Thou  bidst  me  come  to  Thee, 
O  Lamb  of  God,  I  come,  I  come ; " 

for  I  know  that  if  he  should  come  that  way  God 
will  stamp  upon  his  soul  the  image  of  Jesus  in  such 
a  way  that  it  will  never  be  effaced. 

3.   In  the  Earnest,  "Active  Character  of 
Revival  Converts 

Nearly  a  hundred  years  ago  a  letter  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  Congregational  ministers  of  Con- 
necticut containing  this  question,—''  Of  those  who 
are  now  members  of  your  church  what  proportion 
may  be  considered  as  the  fruit  of  a  revival  and 
what  is  their  comparative  standing  for  piety  and 
active  benevolent  enterprise?  "  The  answers  made 
it  very  evident  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
members  became  such  as  a  result  of  revivals  and 
that  the  most  active  and  devoted  Christians  were 
among  those  who  came  into  the  church  in  con- 
sequence of  revivals. 


54  EVANGELISM 

Dr.  Stearns,  speaking  for  the  Presbyterian 
churches  of  Newark,  said,  "  Almost  all  the  strong 
men  in  these  societies  were  the  subjects  of  revivals 
twenty,  thirty,  forty  and  some  of  them  sixty  years 
ago/'  Dr.  Fish,  speaking  of  the  Baptist  churches, 
said,  "  The  revival  additions  have  been  the  very  life 
blood  of  the  church." 

Such  statements  will  not  in  the  least  surprise  any 
one  who  will  really  think  through  on  this  matter.  It 
is  also  a  significant  fact  that  if  you  will  go  to  any 
convention  of  Christian  workers,  where  naturally 
the  best  and  most  devoted  servants  of  Christ  are 
in  attendance,  you  will  find  by  a  test  that  the  per- 
centage of  those  converted  during  a  revival  is  much 
larger  than  this  same  percentage  in  the  membership 
of  an  average  church  congregation. 

4.    In  the  Persistence  of  the  Church  in  Calling 
for  this  Particular  Kind  of  Work 

Every  now  and  then  through  religious  journals 
and  in  public  gatherings  you  find  some  one  proph- 
esying that  the  day  of  so-called  professional  evan- 
gelism is  over.  The  public  or  vocational  evangelist 
is  of  course  no  more  a  "  professional "  evangelist 
than  the  pastor  is  a  "  professional "  pastor. 
However,  this  kind  of  evangelism  and  revivals  are 
by  no  means  synonymous  terms,  although  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  church  they  have  been  very  largely  and 
very  closely  identified,  and  prophecies  like  that  just 
referred  to  come  almost  exclusively  from  preachers 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVIVAL  65 

or  people  who  know  very  little,  and  some  of  them 
nothing  at  all,  through  experience  of  revivals  under 
any  circumstances,  and  the  prophecy  is  the  thought- 
less pronouncement  of  prejudice  rather  than  any 
intelligent  sensing  of  the  actual  religious  situation 
and  its  ever-insistent  demand. 

The  evangelist  and  the  evangelistic  pastor  always 
smile  when  they  hear  of  such  statements  being  made, 
for  they  know  it  is  a  prophecy  that  has  fallen  from 
the  lips  of  similarly  minded  people  ever  since  this 
kind  of  work  became  a  part  of  the  history  of  the 
church;  and  they  know  that  there  is  an  exceedingly 
large  number  of  evangelists  today  whose  services 
the  church  is  constantly  demanding  and  always  has 
demanded,  as  well  as  the  services  of  a  whole  army 
of  pastors  who  are  possessed  especially  of  evangel- 
istic ability. 

The  church  simply  has  not  been  able  to  get  along 
without  the  evangelistic  campaign,  and  church  work 
is  not  any  easier  today  than  in  the  century  just 
past.  Nor  have  we  any  evidence  that  it  is  going 
to  be  any  easier  in  the  years  to  come.  And  the 
persistent  demand  of  the  church  for  this  kind  of 
work  is,  we  repeat,  one  of  its  strongest  historical 
justifications.  Max  Muller  well  said,  "The  church 
must  be  aggressive  or  cease  to  exist."  The  only 
way  the  church  can  be  aggressive  is  to  be  evangel- 
istic, and  the  church  that  is  not  evangelistic  owes 
the  world  as  well  as  God  an  apology  for  its 
existence. 


Ill 

THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE 


THE   PREACHER  AND   HIS   MESSAGE 

I.   The  Preacher. 

I.   His  Convictions. 

(a)  Must  believe  that  men  are  lost. 

(b)  Must  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only 

Saviour. 

(c)  Must    believe    himself    divinely   commis- 

sioned. 

2.  His  Character. 

(a)  Must  be  consistent  in  his  life. 

(b)  Must  be  a  man  of  prayer, — devout. 

(c)  Must     be     considerate,     honouring     the 

Church,  and  holding  the  ministry  in  due 
regard. 

3.  His  Accoutrement. 

(a)  Must  be  a  student. 

(I)  Of  the  Word.     (2)  Of  the  Time. 
(3)    Of  Method. 

(b)  Must  keep  himself  physically  and  mentally 

fresh. 

(c)  Must  be  baptized  with  the  Holy  Spirit. 

II.   The  Message. 

1.  Its  content, — The  Gospel  of  Jesus. 

2.  Its  appeal, — Threefold  to  the  individual,  touching, 

(a)  His  own  righteousness. 

(b)  His  attitude  toward  God. 

(c)  His  relation  to  Society. 

3.  Its   Construction. 

(a)  Flowery  rhetoric,  involved  sentences  and 

heavy    style   to    give   place    to    simple, 
pointed  English, 

(b)  The  sermon  not  a  work  of  art. 

(c)  The  power  of  illustration.     > 

(d)  The  use   of   the   most   effective   sermon 

even  though  newer  ones  at  hand. 

4.  Its  Delivery. 

(a)  The  voice  natural. 

(b)  The   style  conversational. 

(c)  The  self  forgotten. 

(d)  The  spirit. 


Ill 

THE  PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE 

THE  evangelistic  preacher  is  the  preacher  who 
preaches  for  a  verdict.  This  is  true  whether 
he  be  in  the  pastorate  or  the  itinerant  form 
of  work.  Every  preacher  preaches,  of  course,  for 
a  verdict,  or  ought  to,  but  I  am  speaking  now  of 
an  open  verdict  for  Jesus  Christ,  and  not  a  verdict 
unexpressed  and  hidden  in  the  sinner's  soul. 

In  discussing  the  necessary  quahfications  of  the 
evangelistic  preacher,  I  do  not  have  in  mind  that 
native  ability  or  that  peculiar  gift  which  seems  to 
be  a  union  of  certain  physical  and  psychical  quali- 
ties which  some  preachers  to  a  certain  degree  pos- 
sess, and  of  which  God  seems  to  make  some  use. 

One  of  the  most  distinguished  preachers  and 
successful  pastors  of  this  land  told  me  some  time 
ago  that  during  their  meetings  it  was  necessary  for 
the  evangelist  to  be  absent  for  a  week.  He  said 
the  pastors  preached  in  turn  and  gave  the  invita- 
tion without  response.  On  one  occasion  several 
pastors  spoke  in  the  same  service,  but  the  people 
were  urged  to  a  decision  for  Christ  apparently  with- 
out effect.  Then  the  evangelist  returned ;  he  said  a 
few  things,  used  a  few  plain  illustrations  and  when 
he  asked  the  people  if  they  would  accept  Christ,  si 

59 


60  EVANGELISM 

score  or  more  were  on  their  feet  to  say,  "  I  will." 
I  do  not  mean  to  underestimate  such  capacity,  but 
it  is  most  assuredly  an  utterly  useless  thing  unless 
certain  other  qualifications  go  with  it. 

It  is  our  purpose,  therefore,  to  emphasize  those 
things  which  every  preacher  indeed  should  have  and 
to  be  without  which  is  to  fail  and  fail  utterly  in  spite 
of  personality,  magnetic  approach  or  any  other 
grace  that  nature  may  bestow. 

I.  There  are  three  things  to  be  said  about  the 
preacher's  convictions. 

He  must  believe  that  men  are  lost.  There  is 
no  use  throwing  a  life-line  to  a  man  on  dry 
land. 

A  house  burned  down  in  Albany  some  time  ago. 
The  father  and  son  went  down  into  the  basement 
dining-room  to  drag  out  a  large  piece  of  valuable 
furniture.  It  got  wedged  in  the  doorway  and  they 
couldn't  budge  it  another  inch.  The  father  was 
pulling,  and  so  he  was  outside  in  the  hall,  but  the 
son  was  pushing,  and  so  he  was  penned  up  in  the 
basement  room.  The  flames  broke  in  and  the  smoke 
rolled  round  about  him.  The  frantic  father  threw 
himself  against  the  obstruction,  but  it  was  of  no 
use,  and  realizing  the  extreme  peril  and  the  horror 
of  the  situation  he  ran  around  to  the  basement  win- 
dow and  grabbed  hold  of  the  iron  bars  held  in  their 
place  by  the  masonry,  and  with  superhuman  strength 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         61 

he  tore  them  from  their  fastenings  and  pulled  his 
boy  out  of  the  very  jaws  of  death. 

A  friend  of  mine  told  this  story  to  illustrate 
the  point  I  am  making,  and  the  Christian  people 
were  mightily  stirred.  I  had  another  friend  who 
heard  him  do  it  and  he  tried  it  the  next  Sunday  in 
his  own  pulpit.  He  told  how  that  father  made  a 
human  battering-ram  out  of  himself  and  nearly  tele- 
scoped himself  trying  to  butt  that  furniture  out  of 
the  doorway,  and  how,  like  a  wild-eyed  madman, 
he  ran  around  the  house  and  took  hold  of  those 
bars  and  twisted  and  pulled  to  the  bursting  point  of 
his  veins  and  tore  them  out  and  pulled  his  son  out 
of  the  very  jaws  of  death.  But  the  audience  was 
not  moved  and  there  was  no  response,  and  he  asked 
his  wife  when  he  got  home  to  tell  him  what  was 
the  matter.  He  said,  "  I  thought  I  was  doing  just 
fine."  "  Yes,  dear,"  she  said,  "  you  did  do  it  very 
well,  indeed;  but  you  forgot  to  tell  the  people  the 
house  was  on  fire."  To  act  like  that  when  there 
is  no  fire  is  the  part  of  a  maniac,  and  when  there 
is  no  sense  of  impending  peril  and  no  reaHzation 
that  a  soul  without  Christ  is  in  unspeakable  danger 
there  will,  of  course,  be  little  concern  about  sal- 
vation. 

There  is  too  much  preaching  today  that  sounds 
like,  "  Repent,  as  it  were,  and  be  converted  in  a 
sense  or  you  will  be  lost  to  some  extent,"  but  Christ 
said,  "  Ex:cept  ye  repent  ye  shall  all  likewise  per- 
ish."    I  have  no  desire  to  argue  about  the  nature 


62  EVANGELISM 

and  duration  of  the  lost  world.  It's  enough  for 
me  to  know  that  Jesus  said,  '*  And  these  shall  go 
away  into  eternal  punishment*' — kolasin  aionion. 
In  the  light  of  that  expression  what  is  the  use  of 
building  up  a  system  of  theology  on  whether 
*'  aionion  "  means  "  forever  "  or  a  few  months  less  ? 

He  must  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  only  Sa- 
znour.  One  thing  is  certain;  if  a  man  is  los,t,  he 
needs  a  Saviour. 

I  said  to  a  Unitarian  preacher  recently,  "  Who 
was  Jesus  Christ?  " 

He  said,  "  He  was  a  good  man  who  lived  in 
Palestine." 

I  said,  "  Then  He  was  not  your  Saviour." 

He  said,  "  No." 

I  said,  "Have  you  got  a  Saviour?" 

He  said,  "  Yes." 

I  said,  "Who  is  he?" 

He  said,  "  I  am  my  own  saviour." 

He  was  painfully  consistent  at  least.  If  Christ 
was  not  divine  in  a  sense  that  no  other  man  has 
ever  been  divine,  then  He  himself  nee,ded  a  Sa- 
viour. No  man,  however  good  or  great,  can  be 
the  saviour  of  his  own  soul  much  less  the  soul  of 
any  other  man. 

The  man  who  can't  see  that  the  Bible  gives  to 
Jesus  Christ  a  peculiar  and  distinctive  divinity  all 
His  own,  can't  see  the  sun  at  high  noon  on  a  cloud- 
less day. 

The  world  wants  and  needs  for  its  Saviour  some 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         63 

one  more  than  Theodore  Parker's  "  Youth  with  God 
in  his  heart."  It  wants  and  it  needs  a  God  Him- 
self. 

You  might  as  well  try  to  cure  a  runaway  horse 
by  painting  the  barn  a  mild  colour  as  to  save  a  sin- 
ful man  by  a  beautiful  example  or  a  rosy  senti- 
ment. 

He  must  believe  that  he  is  divinely  commissioned. 
It's  a  great  thing  to  go  as  the  ambassador  of  some 
great  government  to  represent  its  interests  and 
claims  to  another  nation,  but  that's  petty  business 
compared  with  going  as  the  ambassador  of  the  eter- 
nal King  of  the  universe  and  taking  with  you  His 
authority  and  power  as  you  represent  Him  and  His 
claims  before  the  sons  and  daughters  of  earth. 
Commanding  an  army  or  sitting  on  a  throne  are 
small  affairs  when  you  set  them  over  against  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel. 

Believe  me,  it  is  no  small  thing  to  assume  this 
high  honour  for  oneself.  Some  preachers  were  not 
born  in  the  tribe  of  Levi.  Let  us  be  sure  that  we 
can  say,  "  Woe  is  me,  if  I  preach  not  the  Gospel." 
It  is  then,  and  then  only,  that  we  have  the  right 
to  speak  with  a  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  And  when 
we  have  made  sure  at  this  point  there  will  be  no 
uncertainty  about  what  God  will  do  when  we  do 
speak.  Can  you  imagine  Peter  standing  up  to  his 
mighty  task  on  Pentecost  or  Philip  running  and 
climbing  into  a  heathen  officer's  chariot  had  they 
doubted  for  one  single  second  their  commission 


64  EVANGELISM 

from  the  most  high  God  and  had  they  not  beHeved 
that  His  authortiy  and  power  would  make  good 
what  they  had  to  say? 


2.  Now,  there  are  three  things  to  be  said 
about  the  preacher's  character. 

He  must  he  consistent  in  his  life.  He  should 
*'  be  an  example  unto  them  that  believe,  in  word, 
in  manner  of  life,  in  love,  in  faith  and  in  purity." 
This  is  what  Paul  said  to  Timothy.  The  most 
pathetic  thing  in  the  world  is  to  see  a  man  who 
preaches  a  Gospel  like  that  and  doesn't  live  it.  His 
life  should  be  irreproachable. 

The  evangelist  and  the  minister  are  subjected  to 
strong  and  peculiar  temptations.  And  then  the  eyes 
of  the  whole  community  are  upon  him  and  nothing 
would  please  the  devil  more  than  to  have  the  very 
appearance  of  evil  magnified  into  that  which  is 
grossly  vile  to  the  ruin  of  the  evangelist  and  the 
hurt  of  his  work.  He  should,  therefore,  "  walk 
circumspectly,  not  as  fools,  but  wise."  Moody 
never  said  a  greater  word  than  this — that  God 
does  not  seek  for  golden  vessels,  and  does  not 
ask  for  silver  ones,  but  He  must  have  clean 
ones. 

He  must  he  a  man  of  prayer.  Men  of  power 
are  always  men  of  prayer.  Do  you  remember  what 
was  said  of  the  Apostle  James,  how  that,  after  his 
death,  his  knees  were  found  to  be  callous  like  a 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         65 

camel's  knees  from  much  kneeling?  Do  you  recall 
that  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  used  to  say  she  feared 
the  prayers  of  John  Knox  more  than  all  the  armies 
of  Europe,  and  do  you  remember  how  John  Knox 
prayed — *' O  God,  give  me  Scotland  or  I  die"? 
Do  you  remember  how  Luther  used  to  lay  down  a 
promise  before  God  and  say,  *'  Now,  Lord,  you  must 
keep  it  or  I'll  never  beheve  you  again?"  And  do 
you  recall  how  it  has  been  said  of  Richard  Baxter 
that  he  stained  the  walls  of  his  study  with  his  pray- 
ing breath,  and  how,  coming  out  from  that  place 
that  was  awful  with  the  presence  of  God,  he  sent 
rivers  of  living  water  over  Kidderminster;  how 
Whitefield  used  to  pray,  "  O  Lord,  give  me  souls  or 
take  my  own  "  ? 

It  is  John  Angel  James  who  said,  "  We  are  weak 
in  the  pulpit  because  we  are  weak  in  the  closet." 
Edward  Payson  thus  writes  to  a  brother  minister, 
"Prayer  is  the  first  thing,  the  second  thing  and 
the  third  thing  necessary  for  a  minister,  especially 
if  he  have  revivals.  Pray  then,  my  dear  brother, 
pray,  pray,  pray."  Young  gentlemen,  don't  make  a 
mistake  at  this  point.  To  fail  here  is  to  fail  alto- 
gether. 

He  must  he  considerate,  honouring  the  church 
and  holding  the  ministry  in  due  regard.  Never 
ridicule  the  Church.  She  is  the  Bride  of  Christ, 
and  therefore  the  mother  of  God's  children,  and 
you  might  a  thousand  times  better  openly  ridicule 
the  one  who  gave  you  birth  because  she  is  im- 


66  EVANGELISM 

perfect  than  to  hold  up  to  public  scorn  the  imper- 
fection of  the  Church  of  God. 

Then  remember  that  God  never  ordained  any 
evangelist  to  sit  in  judgment  on  a  minister.  To 
hold  the  minister  up  to  ridicule  or  abuse  before  the 
people  is  not  only  an  unpardonable  breach  of  cour- 
tesy and  an  act  of  gross  unkindness,  but  it  displays 
an  infinite  amount  of  conceit,  and  especially  so  when 
the  evangelist  himself  has  never  been  a  pastor,  or 
tried  to  be  and  failed,  and  therefore  knows  litde 
or  nothing  of  the  difficulties  and  perplexities  of  a 
pastoral  charge.  Don't  make  the  people  feel  that 
if  their  pastor  had  been  different  the  work  of  God 
would  have  prospered  in  his  hands,  but  make  them 
feel  that  if  they  had  been  different  their  pastor 
would  have  led  a  great  many  souls  into  the  King- 
dom of  God. 

3.  Then,  there  are  three  things  to  be  said 
about  the  preacher's  accoutrement. 

He  must  he  a  student. 

First — He  must  be  a  student  of  the  Word.  Of 
what  use  is  a  soldier  if  he  doesn't  know  how  to 
handle  his  gun?  I  have  had  theological  students 
say  to  me,  "  Mr.  Biederwolf,  if  a  man  should  come 
to  me  and  hand  me  the  Bible  and  say,  '  I  want  to 
be  saved,'  I  would  be  confused  and  hardly  know 
how  to  begin."    Think  of  it! 

When  Philip,  the  evangelist,  climbed  up  into  the 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         67 

eunuch's  chariot  and  found  him  puzzled  over  that 
marvellous  passage  in  Isaiah,  v^hat  did  he  do  ?  Did 
he  say,  "  Well,  my  friend,  you  certainly  have  hit 
upon  a  very  hard  passage;  there's  a  good  deal  of 
doubt  about  it,  and  it's  a  very  serious  question  in 
the  minds  of  many  as  to  whether  it  really  belongs 
in  the  Bible  or  not;  there  are  forty -nine  different 
interpretations  of  the  passage  which  I  can  give  you 
and  you  can  think  them  over  on  your  way  to  Egypt, 
but  I  must  confess  that  I  do  not  understand  this 
particular  Scripture  and  cannot  therefore  help  you 
in  your  perplexity."?  No.  But  he  opened  his 
mouth,  and  beginning  at  the  same  place,  he  preached 
unto  him  Jesus. 

Second — He  must  be  a  student  of  the  times.  He 
can  preach  the  old  Gospel  and  yet  his  message  can 
be  abreast  of  the  day.  Truth  does  not  change,  but 
the  angle  of  approach  is  always  changing. 

And  then,  too,  it  is  easier  to  win  people  when 
they  come  to  understand  that  you  have  an  intelli- 
gent and  sympathetic  appreciation  of  the  problems 
which  are  theirs  because  of  the  times  in  which  they 
live. 

Besides  all  this,  surely  God  is  speaking  to  us 
through  His  providences  as  the  years  roll  by,  and 
it's  the  preacher's  place  to  cause  his  people  to  under- 
stand. 

Third — He  must  be  a  student  of  method.  When 
the  sermon  is  finished  it  is  much  easier  to  pro- 
nounce the  benediction  and  go  home  than  it  is  to 


68  EVANGELISM 

give  the  invitation  and  conduct  an  after-service. 
And  it  is  at  this  last  point  that  all  too  many  preach- 
ers are  nonplussed  altogether,  and  many  a  time  it 
has  been  tried  and  done  pretty  much  like  the 
preacher  who  had  never  harnessed  a  horse.  The 
time  came  when  he  had  to  do  it  and  he  threw  the 
harness  on  the  floor  and  tried  to  drive  the  horse 
into  it ! 

What  can  a  man  do  and  do  well  if  he  doesn't 
know  how?  There  are  a  hundred  methods  of 
church  work  that  would  multiply  a  pastor's  effi- 
ciency a  hundred-fold  if  he  would  only  find  them 
out  and  make  them  a  part  of  his  ministry.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  the  evangelist.  There  are 
methods  of  securing  results  and  ways  of  best  in- 
fluencing men  to  make  the  all-important  decision, 
and  it  is  the  business  of  the  evangelist  and  of  the 
evangelistic  pastor  to  know  what  they  are  and  how 
to  use  them. 

He  must  keep  himself  physically  and  mentally 
fresh.  He  should  know  the  limitation  of  his  physi- 
cal strength  and  should  take  care  of  himself  and 
take  such  exercise  as  may  be  necessary,  so  that  he 
may  minister  in  the  pulpit  and  out  of  it  with  as 
sound  and  fresh  a  body  as  it  is  possible  for  him  to 
have.  It's  a  tremendous  calling — that  of  the  minis- 
try— and  both  God  and  the  people  expect  the  min- 
ister to  be  at  his  best. 

And  then  mentally;  it  is  possible  to  go  into  the 
pulpit  so  tired  in  mind  as  to  make  the  people  tired 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         69 

to  look  at  you.  There's  one  thing  you  may  as  well 
understand;  if  you  are  ever  very  successful  it  is 
going  to  take  a  tremendous  amount  of  hard  work. 

A  minister  once  said  that  he  fooled  his  people. 
They  always  thought  he  was  hard  at  his  pastoral 
work  because  he  put  on  his  silk  hat  and  walked  very 
hurriedly,  but  he  said,  "  I  only  went  to  the  golf 
course  and  put  on  my  cap  and  played  golf  all  day." 
But  you  can't  get  away  with  a  thing  like  that  very 
long.     Today  that  man  is  selling  real  estate. 

Very  few  of  you  if  any  will  ever  win  by  flashes 
of  genius.  In  fact,  no  one  ever  achieves  great  suc- 
cess by  that  alone. 

"  The  heights  by  great  men  reached  and  kept, 
Were  not  attained  by  sudden  flight; 
But  they,  while  their  companions  slept, 
Were  toiling  upward  in  the  night." 

You  must  use  your  mind  and  use  it  vigorously. 
There  is  no  other  way  to  keep  it  fresh  so  far  as 
what  you  keep  in  it  goes.  But  it  too  must  rest  and 
each  one  will  know  best  how  to  prepare  himself 
to  minister  with  vigour  and  vitality  in  the  holy  place 
where  God  has  allowed  him  to  stand. 

He  must  he  baptised  mith  the  Holy  'Ghost. 
There  is  no  use  to  undertake  this  work  without  the 
divine  unction. 

The  promise  was,  "  Ye  shall  receive  power  after 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you."  That 
word  power  comes  from  the  Greek  word,  *'  duna- 
mis,"  and  you  know   what  that  means;   and  the 


70  EVANGELISM 

promise  says,  upon  receiving  power,  "ye  shall  be 
my  witnesses,"  and  when  a  man  preaches  or  a  child 
of  God  witnesses  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit  he 
will,  as  sainted  McGregor  says,  "  Make  men  listen 
and  make  men  think  and  make  men  act." 

If  it  were  my  privilege,  young  gentlemen,  to  ut- 
ter but  one  prayer  for  you,  it  would  be  that  this 
unction  of  the  Holy  Ghost  might  become  to  you 
the  most  real  thing  in  all  the  universe,  because  I 
would  know  then  what  your  ministry  would  mean. 

THE  preacher's  MESSAGE 

I.  As  to  its  content.  It  should  be,  of  course, 
the  Gospel  of  Jesus. 

A  sermon  ought  to  contain  what  Rowland  Hill 
called  the  three  R's:  Ruin  by  the  Fall;  Redemp- 
tion through  Christ;  Regeneration  through  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

If  you  preach  this  you  will  have  power  and  a 
message  the  people  will  accept.  And  it  is  this  mes- 
sage in  its  simplicity  that  the  crowded  churches 
are  hearing  today.  If  you  want  to  preach  to  empty 
pews,  leave  the  Cross  and  the  blood  out  of  your 
message.  You  won't  need  the  sign  that  was  seen 
on  a  certain  church  some  time  ago,  "  Five  dollars 
fine  for  any  one  caught  breaking  into  this  church." 

There  is  a  field  of  legitimate  criticism,  but  not 
one  preacher  in  ten  thousand  is  ever  called  into 
it,     Samson,  backed  by  the  power  of  God,  slew 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE        71 

a  thousand  of  his  enemies  in  one  day  with  the 
jaw-bone  of  an  ass,  and  some  one  has  said  that  the 
higher-critic  preacher  is  today,  without  that  back- 
ing, trying  to  do  the  same  thing,  and  with  the  same 
kind  of  a  weapon. 

Some  day  consecrated  scholarship  will  give  us 
its  final  conclusions,  but  whatever  they  may  be,  you 
may  be  sure  they  will  not  in  any  way  undermine 
our  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh;  and  if  the  time  ever  comes  when  I  cannot 
bring  myself  to  beheve  in  what  I  am  convinced 
the  Word  of  God  declares  to  be  true,  then  I  hon- 
estly hope  for  the  courage  of  my  convictions  and 
the  fairness  with  my  fellowmen  to  leave  the  pulpit 
rather  than  to  remain  and  preach  from  a  book  in 
the  inspiration  of  which  I  have  no  explicit  faith. 

2,  As  to  its  appeal.  This  should  be  always  to 
the  individual  as  touching  one  or  the  other  of  the 
following  three  things. 

(a)  His  own  righteousness.  This  is,  of  course,  an 
appeal  to  the  Christian.  We  need  orthopraxy  as 
well  as  orthodoxy.  The  spirit  of  the  world  has 
crept  into  the  Church  to  an  alarming  degree.  She 
is  suffering  from  spiritual  locomotor  ataxia  and  she 
can't  stand  erect  and  be  the  power  in  the  world  she 
ought  to  be. 

We  think  of  the  evangelist  as  one  set  apart  pri- 
marily to  call  the  unsaved  to  Christ,  but  he  has 
an  important  ministry  to  the  church  as  well.     In- 


72  EVANGELISM 

deed,  Mr.  Moody  in  the  latter  years  of  his  life  said 
he  felt  himself  called  more  and  more  to  preach  to 
God's  people,  and  he  was  engaged  in  a  ministry 
primarily  to  the  church  when  the  summons  came 
that  called  him  into  the  presence  of  God. 

(b)  His  attitude  toward  God.  This  is,  of  course, 
the  appeal  to  the  unsaved.  This  is  the  peculiar 
glory  of  the  evangelist's  ministry.  When  Paul  con- 
verted the  Philippian  jailer  he  did  a  greater  work 
than  Christ  did  when  He  raised  Lazarus  from  the 
grave.  If  the  Church  does  not  increase  numerically 
she  will  dwindle  and  die.  And,  young  gentlemen, 
wherever  your  ministry  may  lie,  I  covet  for  you 
the  supreme  joy  of  being  a  soul-winner,  and  I  pity 
the  preacher  with  all  my  heart  who  can  be  satis- 
fied to  minister  without  it. 

(c)  His  relation  to  society.  This  is  the  appeal 
for  social  service.  Henry  van  Dyke  was  not  wrong 
when  he  said,  "  He  who  seeks  for  heaven  alone  to 
save  his  soul  may  keep  the  path,  but  will  not  reach 
the  goal."  Social  service  means  serving  society, 
and  if  a  man  is  not  saved  for  that  he  is  not  saved 
at  all.  The  call  of  God  to  the  human  soul  is  not, 
"Come  and  take  it  easy";  it  is  not,  "Come  and 
be  carried  to  the  skies  on  flowery  beds  of  ease," 
but  it  is  "  Come  and  serve,"  "  Come  and  suffer  " ; 
not  only,  "  Come  and  be  saved,"  but  "  Come  and 
be  a  saviour,"  and  Social  Service  and  Evangelism 
are  not  in  any  sense,  indeed  cannot  be,  antagonistic. 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         73 

3.     As  to  its  construction. 

I  wish  at  this  point  only  to  emphasize  a  few- 
things  which  I  have  found  most  helpful  in  my  own 
experience. 

The  first  is  simplicity.  The  evangelist  must  re- 
member that,  preaching  nightly  as  he  does,  his  au- 
diences are  filled  with  two  kinds  of  people — some 
who  can't  think  very  profoundly  because  they 
haven't  got  the  grey  matter  to  do  it  with,  and 
some  who  have  been  on  their  feet  all  day  at  hard 
work  and  are  too  tired  to  think  that  Vv^ay.  The 
first  is  true  of  your  Sunday  morning  audience  as 
well.  Bear  this  in  mind  and  remember  that  in  try- 
ing to  preach  to  please  two  or  three  wiseacres  you'll 
likely  let  the  biggest  part  of  your  congregation  go 
starving. 

Don't  parade  around  in  the  pulpit  on  stilts.  Get 
down  on  the  earth  and  put  the  Bread  of  Life  where 
the  common  people  can  get  it.  That's  what  Jesus 
did,  and  they  heard  Him  gladly.  Don't  put  the 
fodder  too  high.  Jesus  didn't  say,  "  Feed  my  gi 
raffes."    He  said,  "  Feed  my  sheep." 

Don't  try  to  be  a  rhetorical  skyscraper.  A  lit- 
tle aeroplaning  now  and  then  may  be  permissible, 
but  don't  stay  up  too  long.  Your  crowd  will  miss 
you.  Give  the  go-by  to  the  lengthy  and  involved 
sentences  and  heavy  style  and  tell  the  people  what 
you  want  them  to  know  in  plain,  simple,  direct 
Anglo-Saxon.     In  doing  so  you  will  find  that  you 


■] 


74  EVANGELISM 

will  compel  attention.  And  the  preacher  who  does 
not  compel  attention  ought  to  stop  preaching  and 
going  to  mending  umbrellas. 

The  second  thing  is  that  the  sermon  should  be 
made  for  a  purpose  and  not  for  its  own  sake.  It 
should  not  be  primarily  a  work  of  art.  It  could 
be  icily  regular  and  splendidly  null  and  still  be  all 
that.  The  question  is,  Does  it  do  the  business? 
Does  it  make  Felix  tremble?  Does  it  make  men 
and  women  sit  up  and  take  notice?  If  it  doesn't 
do  this,  it  is  fit  only  to  be  cast  out  and  trodden 
under  foot  or  to  be  broken  to  pieces  and  made 
over. 

If  I  expect  to  give  an  invitation  or  want  to 
leave  especially  some  certain  impression  I  close  with 
that  part  of  the  sermon  best  calculated  to  do  it 
even  if  I  have  to  yank  it  out  of  its  homiletical  and 
logical  place.  Remember  you  are  not  preaching  for 
bouquets,  but  to  glorify  God  and  to  win  souls.  A 
woman  said  to  me  at  the  close  of  a  sermon,  "  That 
was  such  a  beautiful  sermon  you  preached." 
"  Well,"  I  said,  "  if  that's  all  it  was  and  God  will 
forgive  me,  I'll  never  preach  it  again.'* 

I  don't  know  who  said  this,  but  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  truth  in  it :  "  Evangelism  means  that  ser- 
mons don't  matter  comparatively,  and  souls  do. 
Shall  I  be  accused  of  hopeless  bigotry  if  I  say  that 
to  me  and  some  men  I  have  known  the  ambition 
to  preach  good  sermons  of  a  certain  type — I  will 
say  conventional  type — is  the  biggest  temptation  we 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         75 

ever  get  from  the  devil?  I  heartily  believe  that  to 
appeal  positively  and  directly  to  the  conscience  and 
let  form,  literary  and  other,  go  to  the  winds 
is  the  most  effective  way  not  only  of  winning 
souls,  but  incidentally  of  preaching  good  ser- 
mons." 

The  third  thing  is  the  power  of  illustration. 
Don't  be  afraid  of  illustrations.  The  most  intel- 
lectual member  youVe  got  will  wake  up  and  pay 
attention  whenever  you  use  one.  And  you'll  not  be 
so  apt  to  find  yourself  in  the  predicament  of  that 
preacher  who  shouted  out  one  Sunday  morning: 
*'  You  boys  up  in  the  gallery,  be  quiet ;  you'll  wake 
up  these  people  on  the  lower  floor." 

I  remember  the  disdain  with  which  I  first  looked 
upon  an  illustration.  At  last  there  was  to  appear 
an  evangelist  who  would  be  no  mere  story-teller. 
My  appeal  was  to  be  wholly  to  the  court  of  reason. 
I  soon,  however,  discovered  two  things. 

First — That  I  was  succeeding  admirably  in  put- 
ting my  audience  in  about  twenty  minutes  into  the 
arms  of  nature's  sweet  restorer. 

Second — That  it  takes  far  more  genius  and  in- 
telligence to  use  an  illustration  that  illustrates  and 
use  it  rightly  than  it  does  to  ramble  right  along 
with  general  remarks. 

I  then  knocked  my  sermons  full  of  holes  and 
in  each  hole  put  a  pane  of  the  clearest  glass  I  could 
find.  For  I  remembered  then  what  I  had  heard 
before— the  words  of  dear  old  Moody,  that  **A 


76  EVANGELISM 

sermon  without  illustrations  is  like  a  house  without 
J  windows." 

The  fourth  thing  is  that  the  most  effective  sermon 
should  always  be  used  even  though  newer  ones  are 
in  hand.  In  conducting  an  evangelistic  campaign  I 
pick  out  always  the  sermons  God  has  honoured  most 
highly  in  this  sort  of  work.  I  have  some  sermons 
I  have  preached  200  times  and  I  expect  to  preach 
them  so  long  as  my  ministry  lasts.  I  make  that  ser- 
mon a  part  of  myself  every  time  I  preach  it,  and 
the  older  it  grows  the  longer  I  delight  in  its  de- 
livery, just  as  God  continues  to  put  His  seal  upon 
its  use. 

It  is  folly  to  throw  away  a  Damascus  blade  and 
attempt  to  accomplish  results  with  an  untried  in- 
strument merely  for  the  sake  of  ministering  to  one's 
intellectual  pride. 

4.     As  to  its  delivery. 

Here  is  a  field  for  a  dozen  lectures  and  I  must 
content  myself  with  only  a  few  remarks. 

"  How  is  it,"  said  a  preacher  to  a  baseball 
pitcher,  "  that  you  make  $7,000  a  year  doing  that, 
and  I  get  only  $1,000  preaching  the  Gospel?" 
**  Oh,"  said  the  pitcher,  "  the  difference  is  in  the 
delivery."  There  are  four  things  I  will  say  and 
finish. 

The  voice  should  he  natural.  It's  a  strange  thing 
that  so  many  preachers  think  they  must  have  one 
tone  of  voice  in  the  pulpit  and  another  tone  outside 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE         77 

of  it.  You  know  ithere  is  such  a  thing  as  a  preacher's 
tone,  and  many  a  preacher  seems  to  think  it  is  one 
of  the  main  essentials  of  success,  but  a  thing  of 
that  kind  is  about  as  much  use  to  a  preacher  as  a 
pair  of  stork's  legs  is  to  a  sitting  hen. 

If  a  preacher  went  into  a  store  and  asked  for 
a  gallon  of  coal-oil  in  the  same  tone  of  voice  that 
he  lines  out  a  hymn  or  reads  the  Scripture  they 
would  think  he  needed  an  operation  above  his  eyes. 
What's  the  use  of  announcing  with  a  hark-from- 
the-tomb-a-doleful-sound  sort  of  voice  that  the 
Ladies'  Home  Missionary  Society  will  meet  next 
Thursday  afternoon  at  the  home  of  Mrs.  Jonathan 
Snyder?  And  where's  the  sense  of  the  pious  whine 
we  so  often  hear,  if  the  preacher  expects  the  people 
to  pay  any  attention  to  what  he  is  saying?  Preach 
with  the  voice  nature  gave  you. 

The  style  should  be  conversational.  An  old 
preacher  once  said,  "  When  I  first  began  preaching 
I  thought  it  was  the  thunder  that  killed,  and  so  I 
tried  to  make  all  the  noise  I  could  in  my  preaching, 
but  after  a  while  I  found  out  ,that  it  was  the  light- 
ning that  did  the  business,  and  since  that  time  I've 
tried  to  thunder  less  and  lighten  more." 

Noise  is  no  evidence  of  effectiveness.  It's  no  sign 
of  profundity.  Deep  waters  are  silent.  To  roar 
like  a  Bashan  bull  is  no  sign  you  are  delivering  the 
goods.  A  lawyer  talks  to  his  jury  and  tells  them 
what  he  wants  them  to  know;  a  teacher  does  the 
same  to  his  students.    But  some  preachers  preach 


78  EVANGELISM 

as  though  the  particular  purpose  of  their  appear- 
ance in  the  pulpit  is  to  paralyze  the  ear-drum.  If 
there  is  the  slightest  occasion  or  even  excuse  for 
italics  they  will  stand  on  their  toes,  get  red  in  the 
face,  swell  up  in  the  neck,  pull  in  their  diaphragm 
and  push  out  their  chest  and  yell  as  if  they  were 
trying  to  reach  the  island  of  Madagascar  by  a  wire- 
less telephone  that  was  out  of  order. 

Cultivate  the  conversational  tone.  This  was  the 
charm  and  the  power  of  Finney  and  of  Spurgeon, 
and  indeed  of  all  great  and  effective  preachers. 

Oneself  should  be  forgotten.  There  are  two 
kinds  of  self-consciousness  that  all  too  frequently 
obtain  in  the  ministry.  One  is  a  disposition  and 
the  other  is  an  inclination,  and  there  is  only  one 
remedy  for  both. 

There  is  the  preacher  who  is  everlastingly  and 
with  deliberation  projecting  himself  into  the  fore- 
ground in  all  he  does  and  says.  He  carries  his 
self -consciousness  about  him  like  an  atmosphere  and 
all  the  people  are  affected  by  it.  They  can  see  that 
he  knows  he  is  doing  remarkably  well,  if  he  thinks 
he  is.  He  steps  in  front  of  the  cross  and  the  peo- 
ple see  that  he*s  thinking  of  himself  rather  than  his 
Lord  and  they  pity  him,  although  he  doesn't  seem 
to  know  it. 

He  is  the  fellow  who  preaches  Henry  Smith  dig- 
nified instead  of  Jesus  Christ  crucified.  As  a  gen- 
eral thing  he's  all  front  door;  open  the  door  and 
you're  in  the  back  yard.    As  a  class  he  is  usually 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE        79 

represented  by  the  young  minister  who  walked  into 
the  church  and  down  the  aisle  and  into  the  pulpit 
with  a  lordly  air  as  if  something  of  unusual  im- 
portance was  about  to  occur.  He  failed  miserably 
and  went  out  with  hanging  head.  Outside  an  old 
minister  met  him  at  the  exit  and  said,  "Young 
man,  if  you  had  come  in  as  you  went  out,  you  would 
have  gone  out  as  you  came  in.'* 

The  other  form  of  self -consciousness  is  that 
which  comes  in  spite  of  oneself.  It's  a  very  sub- 
tle thing  with  which  you  will  all  have  to  deal.  When 
you  are  doing  well  there  will  be  some  evil  influence 
ready  to  grab  your  hand  and  make  it  pat  your  own 
back.  If  you  find  yourself  failing  and  the  sermon 
doesn't  grip,  instead  of  remembering  why  you  are 
preaching,  you  may  find  yourself  inclined  to  be- 
come conscious  about  yourself  and  the  reputation 
you  are  making,  and  you'll  begin  to  perspire  and 
colour  up  and  lose  control  of  yourself  in  an  effort 
to  redeem  what  you  seem  to  think  is  a  lost  situa- 
tion. 

There  is  but  one  way  to  overcome — perhaps  a 
rather  long  way  for  some  of  us.  It  is  the  way  of 
Communion  and  prayer  that  shall  lead  us  at  last  » 
to  lose  ourselves  so  entirely  in  Him  that  we  shall 
be  willing  even  to  fail  for  His  sake,  counting  our 
own  reputation  as  nothing  if  only  both  congregation 
and  preacher  shall  "  see  no  man  save  Jesus  only." 

The  last  thing  to  which  I  would  refer  is  the  spirit 
of  delivery. 


80  EVANGELISM 

First — It  should  be  earnest.  The  man  in  earnest 
always  "  gets  there."  Put  him  in  a  log  cabin  and 
he'll  split  rails  to  the  White  House.  Put  him  in 
jail  and  he'll  write  ''  Pilgrim's  Progress."  Put 
out  his  eyes  and  he'll  produce  "  Paradise  Lost." 

When  it  comes  to  preaching  you  might  as  well 
try  to  run  a  locomotive  without  steam  as  to  think 
of  making  a  sermon  go  without  earnestness.  The 
papers  told  sometime  ago  of  a  man  who  was  run 
over  by  a  hearse.  Let  us  hope  he  was  not  a  preach- 
er. I  have  a  friend  who  used  to  say  that  a  preacher 
who  has  no  more  animation  than  a  punctured  tire 
is  as  disappointing  as  a  painted  fire  in  zero  weather, 
and  that  a  sermon  without  animation  in  its  deliv- 
ery is  as  dead  as  an  Egyptian  mummy.  Richard 
Sheridan  said  he  often  went  to  hear  Rowland  Hill 
preach  because  his  words  flowed  hissing  hot  from 
his  heart.  Chalmers'  main  forte  as  a  preacher  and 
a  college  professor,  it  is  said,  was  his  "blood- 
earnestness."  "  What  we  want,"  remarked  a  Chi- 
nese convert  once,  "  is  men  with  hot  hearts  to  tell 
us  of  the  love  of  Christ."  "  Be  earnest,"  some  one 
has  said,  "  and  the  fire  of  your  own  soul  will  kin- 
dle a  flame  in  the  souls  of  others.  Recall  what 
Garrick  said  to  the  preacher  in  explaining  the  dif- 
ference in  the  size  of  their  audience.  Said  he  to 
the  preacher,  "  I  act  fiction  as  though  it  were  truth; 
you  preach  truth  as  though  it  were  fiction." 

Don't  be  too  much  frightened  by  that  word  sen- 
sationalism.   Sensation,  when  the  last  word  has  been 


PREACHER  AND  HIS  MESSAGE        81 

said,  means  life,  and  where  there  is  no  sensation 
you  are  sure  to  find  death.  There  is  a  sensational- 
ism in  the  pulpit  which  no  sensible  person  would 
endorse  for  a  moment.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
the  church  has  had  to  tolerate  an  extreme  conser- 
vatism and  a  chilling  conventionality  which  have 
brought  paralysis  with  them,  and  between  the  two, 
I  don't  know  but  what  the  excitement  of  the  for- 
mer is  quite  as  tolerable  as  the  mildew  and  the  dry 
rot  of  the  latter.  The  people  of  Wotton  used  to 
call  Rowland  Hill  a  madman,  but  if  the  preaching 
of  Rowland  Hill  made  a  madman  out  of  him,  then 
God  hasten  the  day  when  our  pulpits  will  be  filled 
with  maniacs. 

Second — And  then  the  delivery,  of  course,  should 
be  in  the  demonstration  of  the  Spirit  and  of  power. 
What  we  said  before  we  say  again,  and  shall 
repeat  it — the  preacher  needs  the  tongue  of 
fire. 

No  wonder  Finney  could  preach.  Sometimes  long 
after  the  hour  for  service  had  come  and  Finney 
was  missing  they  would  find  him  somewhere  out  in 
the  woods  lying  on  his  face  and  telling  God  that 
he  would  not  go  into  the  service  until  he  was  sure 
the  Holy  Spirit  was  going  with  him.  Ask  Him, 
my  young  friends,  to  go  with  you  into  the  pulpit 
and  He  will  do  it;  and  He  will  fill  you  and  use 
you. 

I  want  to  say  to  you,  my  young  friends,  in 
closing,     that     I     have    not    said     anything    nor 


82  EVANGELISM 

laid  down  a  precept  of  any  kind  but  that  it  has 
come  back  to  me  with  something  of  a  rebuke. 
I  wish  I  could  stand  again  at  the  beginning  of  my 
ministry.  I  believe  I  could  do  better  work.  But  I 
want  to  commend  these  things  to  you  and  you  to 
Him,  and  if  when  this  short  ministry  among  you 
is  over  we  should  not  meet  again  until  we  meet  in 
His  presence,  let  us  remember  that  we  have  met 
here  this  morning  and  talked  together  about  the 
greatest  work  a  man  can  do  and  I  congratulate  you 
upon  being  called  to  do  it. 


IV 
PASTORAL  EVANGELISM 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM 

I.   Its  Importance. 

The  church  must  increase  numerically. 

(a)  To  perpetuate  itself. 

(b)  To  be  a  power  for  righteousness  in  the 

community. 

II.   Its  Aim — Every  part  and  department  of  the  local  church 
work  used  to  win  the  unsaved  for  Christ. 

III.  Its  Requirements. 

1.  A  knozvledge  of  how  to  do  evangelistic  work.    No 

imported  messenger  can  ever  take  the  pastor's 
place  as  a  soul  winner. 

2.  A  knowledge  of  productive  methods. 

3.  A  knowledge  of  the  local  situation. 

IV.  Its  Workable  Plans. 

1.  The  Evangelistic  Sunday  School. 

(a)  The  Opportunity. 

(i)  Nine-tenths  of  Christians  con- 
verted before  twenty. 

(2)  Sunday  School  the  nesting  place 
for  most  of  them. 

(b)  Sensing  the  situation.  Has  the  emphasis 
on  Christian  culture  weakened  the  evan- 
gelistic appeal  ? 

(c)  The    Responsibility. 

(i)  Chief  duty  of  teachers  to  lead 
scholars  to  Christ. 

(d)  The  Special  Effort  on  Decision  Day. 

2.  The  Sunday  Evening  Service. 

(a)  The  service  made  evangelistic. 

(b)  The  meeting  advertised, 

(c)  The  music  specialized. 

(d)  The   stranger  welcomed. 

(e)  The  invitation  given. 

(f)  The  after-meeting  held. 

3.  The  Special  Revival  Effort  or  Mission. 

(a)  The  church  must  recognize  the  psychology 

of  revival  and  give  to  it  its  proper  place 
in  the  church  program. 

(b)  Selecting  the  preacher  for  the  revival  min- 

istry. 
,/     (c)  The  church  must  prepare  thoroughly  for 
the  revival. 
(d)  The  church  must  guarantee  its  success  by 
using  methods  best  adapted  to  the  situa- 
tion. 


IV 
PASTORAL  EVANGELISM 

RELIGIOUS  service  is  something  more  thari 
worship.  It  is  something  more  than  listen- 
ing to  song  and  sermon.  And  Christian 
work  is  something  more  than  church  attendance 
and  the  operation  of  bazaars,  and  rummage  sales 
and  strawberry  socials.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
church  to  save  souls  just  as  it  is  the  business  of 
a  fisherman  to  catch  fish  or  of  an  automobile  fac- 
tory to  turn  out  automobiles. 

The  church  that  is  not  evangelistic  ceases  to  be 
evangelical.  The  ideal  of  every  church  ought  to 
be  inspired  by  the  experience  of  the  Apostles  after 
Pentecost,  when  they  "  added  to  the  church  daily 
such  as  were  being  saved.'*  I  do  not  mean  to  say, 
however,  that  the  real  work  of  the  church  is  to 
be  conceived  of  in  terms  of  numerical  increase  any 
more  than  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  upbuilding  of 
the  spiritual  life  of  its  members.  It  is  to  be  found 
in  both. 

But  the  church  must  increase  numerically.  We 
may  build  our  magnificent  temples  of  worship  and 
number  with  pride  our  renowned  preachers ;  we  may 
confess  to  an  intelligence  and  an  equipment  such 
as  no  other  age  has  ever  known;  we  may  meet  in 

85 


86  EVANGELISM 

our  mammoth  conventions,  appoint  new  commit- 
tees and  organize  new  societies  and  congratulate 
ourselves  upon  our  increasing  influence  in  other 
ways,  but  we  must  not  blind  ourselves  to  the  plain, 
blunt  truth  that  the  church  can  do  all  this  and  yet 
if  it  does  not  increase  numerically  the  days  of  its 
usefulness  and  power  as  well  as  of  its  own  exist- 
ence will  soon  be  at  an  end. 

It  was  when  the  death-rate  of  France  began  to 
exceed  her  birth-rate  that  she  fell  an  easy  prey  in 
the  Franco-Prussian  war  to  her  more  productive 
and  powerful  German  neighbour  and  enemy.  And 
so  we  repeat  that  if  the  church  is  to  perpetuate  her- 
self, and  become  the  power  for  righteousness  in 
the  community  she  ought  to  be,  she  must  be  evan- 
gelistic. 

THE  AIM  OF  PASTORAL  EVANGELISM 

This  leads  very  naturally  to  the  discussion  of 
what  the  aim  of  an  evangelistic  church  ought  to 
be.  To  be  an  evangelistic  pastor  does  not  mean 
necessarily  to  preach  evangelistic  sermons.  Such 
a  pastor  will  do  this  very  largely.  But  if  pastoral 
evangelism  is  to  find  its  proper  expression,  every 
church  activity  should  be  made,  to  a  considerable 
degree  at  least,  an  evangelistic  agency  and  every 
part  and  department  of  the  local  church  work  should 
be  used  to  win  the  unsaved  for  Christ.  We  can, 
therefore,  see  how  greatly  important  then  is  this 
subject  of  Pastoral  Evangelism  and  why  it  should 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  87 

be  made  the  subject  of  close  and  discriminating 
study. 

When  Christ  would  win  the  world  to  Himself 
and  extend  his  Kingdom  to  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  earth,  He  established  the  church  as  the  one 
divine  agent  to  bring  it  about.  Whatever  is  ac- 
complished and  in  whatever  way  it  is  accomplished, 
it  depends  very  largely,  if  not  altogether,  upon  the 
church  to  give  it  direction  and  organization  and  to 
marshal  the  forces  for  the  largest  possible  achieve- 
ment, as  well  as  to  maintain  and  conserve  the  re- 
sults when  they  are  achieved.  What  a  position  of 
responsibility,  then,  is  that  of  the  pastorate  of  a 
church,  for  upon  the  pastor  after  all  depends  very 
largely  the  kind  of  a  church  that  his  church  is 
to  be. 

THE    REQUIREMENTS 

Let  US  see,  then,  what  are  some  of  the  require- 
ments of  successful  pastoral  evangelism.  There 
are  three  things,  as  I  view  the  matter,  that  the 
pastor  of  such  a  church  ought  to  know. 

I.  He  ought  to  know  how  to  do  evangelistic 
work  himself.  No  imported  messenger  can  ever 
take  the  pastor's  place  as  a  soul- winner.  But  if 
one  is  to  be  an  evangelistic  pastor  he  must  cer- 
tainly keep  in  mind  this  thought,  that,  as  Dr.  Chap- 
man once  said,  "  Ordinary  preaching  will  not  do 
the  work.  I  do  not  mean  ordinary  as  to  ability, 
but  ordinary  as  to  plan." 


88  EVANGELISM 

A  prevailing  defect  in  much  of  the  preaching 
of  our  day  is  that  it  is  not  aimed  at  the  conver- 
sion of  men.  Of  course  there  are  other  ends,  but 
this  should  be  made  one  of  the  chief  ones.  How 
great  is  that  multitude  of  preachers  who  scarcely, 
if  ever,  distinctly  concentrate  all  the  parts  of  any 
single  service  to  the  one  point  of  causing  men  to 
decide  for  Christ. 

It  is  related  of  two  preachers  that  one  had  great 
success  in  bringing  men  to  Christ,  and  the  other 
never  saw  any  converted.  The  latter  inquired  of 
the  former  what  was  the  reason  of  this  difference. 
"Why/'  repHed  the  other,  "the  reason  is  that  I 
aim  at  a  different  end  from  you  in  preaching.  My 
object  is  to  convert  sinners,  but  you  aim  at  nothing 
of  the  kind ;  and  then  you  lay  it  to  the  sovereignty 
of  God  that  you  do  not  produce  the  same  effect. 
Take  one  of  my  sermons  and  preach  it  to  your 
people  and  see  what  the  effect  will  be."  The  man 
did  so,  and  preached  the  sermon,  and  it  did  have 
an  effect,  and  they  tell  us  the  man  became  almost 
frightened  when  he  saw  people  concerned  about 
their  souls. 

We  must  not  get  the  idea  that  the  travelling 
evangelist  has  a  monopoly  on  the  evangelistic  gift. 
Indeed,  his  large  sphere  of  usefulness  has  largely 
been  made  possible,  as  Dr.  Olin  Green  says,  "by 
the  dereliction  of  pastors  to  exercise  and  improve 
their  own  evangelistic  gifts  and  the  evangelistic 
spirit  in  the  churches."     Paul  wrote  to  the  young 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  89 

pastor  at  Ephesus  and  told  him  to  "  stir  up  the 
gift  that  is  within  thee  '*  and  to  "do  the  work  of 
an  evangelist."  Many  pastors  do  not  realize  the 
latent  evangelistic  ability  which  they  possess,  and 
failing  to  realize  it  they  fail  to  cultivate  it,  and 
consequently  this  talent  lies  dormant  while  a  dis- 
proportionate amount  of  time  is  spent  on  the  ser- 
mon from  a  homiletical  and  rhetorical  standpoint, 
and  as  a  result  nothing  is  left  to  do  when  the  ser- 
mon is  finished  but  to  announce  the  last  hymn  and 
pronounce  the  benediction. 

Then,  it  is  a  lamentable  fact  that  there  are  many 
pastors  in  the  church  who,  if  they  felt  impressed 
at  the  close  of  a  sermon  that  the  invitation  ought 
to  be  given,  would  be  utterly  nonplussed  as  to  how 
to  do  it.  A  prominent  business  man  of  New  York 
City  said,  after  hearing  a  noted  preacher  preach 
a  sermon,  "  If  he  had  given  an  invitation  I  should 
have  gone  forward,  taken  his  hand  and  accepted 
Christ.  I  was  never  more  moved  in  my  life.  I 
question  if  I  shall  ever  be  so  moved  again." 

May  I  lend  testimony  that  what  little  success  I 
have  had  in  leading  men  to  the  place  of  decision 
for  Christ  has  not,  so  far  as  the  human  element 
enters  in,  been  due  to  any  peculiar  genius  or 
native  ability  which  has  been  mine,  but  rather  to 
hard,  earnest  and  persistent  study  of  the  best 
possible  plans  and  methods  for  this  kind  of  work. 
And  while  I  wish  for  you  each  one  an  avoidance 
of  any  unreasoning  prejudice  against  the  trained 


90  EVANGELISM 

evangelist,  I  do  covet  for  you  such  a  consecrated 
interest  in  and  attention  to  this  particular  phase  of 
the  ministry  as  will  make  it  possible  very  largely 
for  each  one  of  you  as  a  pastor  to  be  your  own 
evangelist;  for  this  after  all  is  as  it  should  be.  This 
is  the  ideal. 

2.  He  ought  to  know  such  methods  of  church 
work  as  are  most  productive  of  evangelistic 
results.  There  are  two  ways  especially  by  which 
such  knowledge  may  be  secured. 

First — By  reading  the  best  books  on  the  subject. 
Most  of  the  successful  methods  of  work  have  been 
put  into  print  and  no  one  but  a  fool  or  a  consum- 
mate egotist  would  ignore  in  a  work  of  any  kind 
what  others  have  learned  before  him.  You  might 
as  well  step  out  into  the  starry  night  and  expect 
to  write  an  accurate  treatise  on  astronomy  and  ig- 
nore all  the  findings  and  deductions  of  Galileo  and 
Kepler  and  Herschel  and  scores  of  others  who  have 
given  decades  of  tireless  study  to  God's  handiwork 
in  the  skies. 

There  are  numberless  good  books  on  Method, 
such  as  "  Pastoral  Evangelism,"  by  Charles  L. 
Goodell;  "How  to  Promote  and  Conduct  a  Suc- 
cessful Revival,"  by  R.  A.  Torrey;  "  Modern  Meth- 
ods of  Church  Work,"  by  Meade,  and  "  Present 
Day  Evangelism,"  by  J.  Wilbur  Chapman. 

Second — By  personal  investigation  of  the  church 
work  of  such  pastors  as  have  been  notably  success- 
ful along  this  line. 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  91 

In  my  own  younger  days  I  sought  opportunity 
to  sit  at  the  feet  of  every  successful  evangelist  in 
the  United  States,  and  I  am  convinced  that  it  would 
be  a  wise  thing  for  every  student  for  the  minis- 
try and  for  every  young  pastor  to  sit  for  a  while 
at  the  feet  of  some  of  the  older  pastors  who  have 
a  reputation  for  being  notably  successful  along 
evangelistic  lines. 

There  are  many  such  churches  in  this  country, 
among  which  we  might  mention  the  following: 

The  First  Presbyterian  Church,  Seattle,  Wash- 
ington, Rev.  M.  A'.  Mathews,  Pastor. 

The  Bethany  Temple,  Philadelphia,  Rev.  Asa  J. 
Ferry,  Pastor. 

The  Lindenwood  Presbyterian  Church,  Kansas 
City,  Mo.,  Rev.  Harry  C.  Rogers,  Pastor. 

The  First  Baptist  Church,  Dallas,  Texas,  Rev. 
George  W.  Truett,  Pastor. 

The  White  Temple,  Pordand,  Ore.,  Rev.  Waldo, 
Pastor. 

The  First  Baptist  Church,  Minneapolis,  Minn., 
Rev.  W.  B.  Riley,  Pastor. 

The  First  Methodist  Church,  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
Rev.  E.  L.  Waldorf,  Pastor. 

3.  He  ought  to  know  the  local  situation.  He 
should  know  his  field — the  population  and  its  char- 
acter, the  number  of  unchurched  people,  the  amuse- 
ment centres,  the  social  and  economic  conditions, 
etc.  Full  information  concerning  the  making  of  a 
survey  of  this  kind  may  be  secured  at  headquarters, 


92  EVANGELISM 

WORKABLE   PLANS 

When  we  come  to  speak  of  the  workable  plans 
for  Pastoral  Evangelism  we  must  bear  in  mind  what 
was  said  about  making  every  kind  of  church  activity 
to  some  degree  an  evangelistic  agency,  but  the  more 
important  aspects  of  this  work  may  very  properly 
be  classified  under  the  threefold  heading  of  the 
Evangelistic  Sunday  School,  the  Sunday  Evening 
Service  and  the  Special  Revival  Effort  or  Mission. 

I.  The  Evangelistic  Sunday  School.  We 
usually  think  of  the  Sunday  School  as  a  part  of  the 
church,  but  the  fact  of  the  matter  is  the  two  are 
component  parts  of  one  whole  and  the  business  of 
the  one  is  exactly  the  business  of  the  other — to  win 
souls  for  Christ  and  to  build  them  up  in  Christian 
character.  It  would  be  a  sad  thing  if  there  were 
any  dispute  about  this.  But  there  is  none.  And  yet 
there  is  many  a  Sunday  School  teacher  who  seems 
to  lack  an  appreciation  altogether  of  the  first  and 
fundamental  part  of  this  business. 

I  do  not  want  to  become  sponsor  for  the  thought 
that  conversion  as  we  seem  to  have  always  under- 
stood it  is  a  necessary  experience  in  the  Hfe  of 
every  child.  There  are  earnest  Christian  people  in 
the  Kingdom  today  who  will  tell  you  that,  so  far 
as  they  know,  there  was  no  one  time  of  definite 
decision  for  Christ,  but  that  from  the  day  of  their 
earliest  recollection  they  always  loved  their  Saviour 
and  meant  to  do  His  will.    And  yet  for  most  people 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  93 

the  coming  into  the  Kingdom  has  been  through 
a  definite  crisal  experience  and  the  vast  majority 
of  these  experiences  took  place  in  the  days  of  child- 
hood and  youth. 

The  Sunday  School,  therefore,  presents  the  rarest 
possible  opportunity  for  soul-winning.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  four-fifths  of  all  who  are  ever 
saved  are  brought  into  the  Kingdom  during  the 
period  of  life  that  more  nearly  represents  the  Sun- 
day School  age.  In  fact,  nine-tenths  of  all  Chris- 
tian people  were  converted  before  they  were  twenty 
and  practically  all  of  them  were  nurtured  in  the 
Sunday  School.  Somewhere  in  the  early  adoles- 
cence is  the  normal  age  for  coming  into  a  healthy 
religious  consciousness  and  entering  upon  deliber- 
ate devotion  to  one's  Lord  and  Master. 

Among  five  hundred  and  twelve  officers  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  the  average  age 
of  the  first  deep  religious  impression  was  between 
thirteen  and  fourteen  years. 

Little  did  John  Wesley  know  how  well  he  was 
prophesying  when  150  years  ago,  seeing  what  Rob- 
ert Raikes  was  doing,  he  said,  "  Perhaps  God  may 
find  a  deeper  end  in  the  Sunday  School  than  men 
are  aware  of;  who  knows  but  some  of  these  schools 
may  be  nurseries  for  Christians  ?  " 

More  and  more,  I  think,  we  are  coming  to  see 
that  the  future  of  the  church  depends  upon  Christ's 
influence  with  the  children.  If  this  be  true,  how 
fatal  then  the  mistake  not  to  take  advantage  of 


94  EVANGELISM 

the  tremendous  opportunity  presented  by  the  Sun- 
day School  to  bring  them  into  definite  allegiance 
with  Him. 

Sometimes  I  am  asked  how  old  a  child  ought 
to  be  before  it  can  decide  definitely  and  intelligently 
for  Jesus  Christ.  I  don't  know.  That's  a  hard 
question  to  answer.  In  fact,  it  can't  be  answered. 
I  sometimes  think  one  can  be  too  old  to  become 
a  Christian,  but  I  wonder  if  one  can  be  too 
young. 

A  Sunday  School  teacher  on  a  certain  Decision 
Day  asked  her  scholars  to  give  themselves  to  Christ. 
They  were  eleven  years  old.  Four  of  them  said, 
"I  will,"  and  three  of  them  said,  "I  won't." 
"  Now,"  she  said  to  the  pastor,  *'  do  you  think 
those  four  who  said  *  I  will '  knew  what  they  were 
doing?"  *' Well,"  said  the  pastor,  "do  you  think 
those  three  who  said  *  I  won't '  knew  what  they 
were  doing  ?  "  The  idea  that  a  child  would  know 
enough  to  say  "  No  "  and  not  know  enough  to  say 
"Yes"! 

I  one  time  found  a  little  girl  of  twelve  crying 
because  her  mother  would  not  let  her  come  forward 
and  say  she  would  become  a  Christian.  The  mother 
said  the  child  did  not  know  what  it  meant.  I  ques- 
tioned both  the  mother  and  the  child  and  decided 
that  of  the  two  the  child  was  the  only  one  that 
knew  anything  about  it  at  all. 

Mr.  Spurgeon  lent  the  remarkable  testknony  that 
of  the  more  than  2,000  children  he  took  into  the 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  95 

church  he  never  knew  of  one  case  of  later  dis- 
cipline among  them  all. 

We  must,  therefore,  he  on  our  guard  against  any 
tendency  in  the  Sunday  School  to  so  place  the  em- 
phasis  upon  mere  culture  of  any  kind,  even  though 
it  he  Christian,  as  to  weaken  the  evangelistic  ap- 
peal hy  the  elimination  altogether  of  the  definite 
crisal  conversion.  Furthermore,  it  should  be 
frankly  and  constantly  avowed  by  pastor,  superin- 
tendent and  teacher  that  the  first  and  fundamental 
objective  of  the  Sunday  School  is  to  bring  the  chil- 
dren into  a  personal  experience  of  religion. 

To  this  end  the  Sunday  School  must  be  on  guard 
against  some  of  the  lesson  helps  and  other  litera- 
ture which  the  advocates  of  an  "  ethical  culture 
gospel "  are  striving  to  introduce  into  this  sphere 
of  Christian  work  where  such  eternal  issues  are 
at  stake.  Some  people  talk  as  though  it  is  a  new 
set  of  grandparents  that  a  sinner  needs  instead  of 
the  grace  of  God.  When  an  advocate  of  this  sort 
of  sociology  comes  to  me  and  tries  to  make  me 
believe  that  you  can  regenerate  the  individual  and 
the  race  by  getting  the  bad  blood  out  of  their  veins 
and  the  sewer  gas  out  of  their  nostrils  and  a  dose 
of  ethical  culture  into  their  heads,  I  tell  him  that 
he  is  thinking  a  species  of  sublimated  inconcinnity 
which  healthy  minds  have  long  ago  relegated  to 
the  limbo  of  exploded  foolishness. 

Again,  if  opportunity  has  anything  to  do  with 
the  measure  of  responsibility,  then  the  responsp- 


96  EVANGELISM 

bility  of  the  Sunday  School  teacher  is  so  great  that 
one  can  well  afford  to  stagger  at  the  thought  of 
it.  There  are  alas!  too  many  teachers  who  seem 
to  think  that  Sunday  School  teaching  consists  in 
telling  the  scholars  all  about  the  miracles  of  Christ 
and  all  about  His  parables  and  all  about  the  land 
of  His  birth  and  ministry — in  fact,  all  about  the 
Christ — instead  of  leading  them  to  the  Christ  Him- 
self. 

Because  of  this  many  a  one  who  has  borne  no 
little  reputation  as  a  successful  teacher  from  every 
other  standpoint  has  found  his  or  her  scholars  at  a 
certain  very  critical  period  slipping  through  their 
hands  and  out  into  the  world  from  whence  they 
will  doubtless  never  return. 

How  truly  did  Mrs.  Lamoreaux  speak  in  her 
splendid  little  volume  which  she  has  called  "  The 
Unfolding  Life"  when,  with  reference  to  the 
words,  "  While  thy  servant  was  busy  here  and  there 
he  was  gone,"  she  said,  "Who  was  gone?  A  soul 
in  its  crisis,  making  eternal  choices,  easily  influ- 
enced by  a  word,  a  look  or  a  touch,  in  the  grip  of 
fierce  temptations,  but  catching  sight  of  Divine  pos- 
sibilities, needing  help  as  at  no  time  before  or  later; 
this  is  the  soul  that  slipped  away,  in  all  probability, 
not  to  be  brought  back.  You  let  it  slip.  How  will 
you  go  up  to  the  Father  and  the  lad  be  not  with 
you?" 

It  is  possible  indeed,  I  say,  to  be  successful  in 
other  ways.     That  teacher  may  be  a  good  talker;- 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  97 

she  may  have  a  warm  heart  and  an  attractive  per- 
sonality; she  may  emphasize  the  social  features 
of  the  work  and  completely  win  the  scholars  to 
herself,  and  so  have  perhaps  the  banner  class  for 
attendance,  but  if  she  is  not  winning,  or  at  least 
trying  to  win,  her  scholars  to  Jesus  Christ,  she  is 
one  of  the  poorest  and  most  unsuccessful  teachers 
of  them  all. 

The  teacher,  therefore,  should  be  trained  to  ex- 
pect decisions  for  Christ.  There  should,  therefore, 
be  organized  the  Teachers'  Training  Class,  without 
which  no  Sunday  School  can  ever  do  its  best  work, 
and  a  part  of  its  time  should  be  devoted  to  the 
study  of  the  best  ways  of  deahng  with  young  peo- 
ple about  this  all-important  matter. 

And  then  it  should  be  understood  that  requests 
for  frank  and  quiet  interviews  concerning  the  Chris- 
tian life  with  the  pastor  or  teacher  are  always  wel- 
come, and  a  public  statement  to  that  effect  may 
wisely  be  made  from  time  to  time.  It  is  a  wise 
thing  to  have,  so  far  as  possible,  a  set  time  when 
it  is  known  the  pastor  will  be  glad  for  conference 
with  interested  ones. 

Perhaps  no  feature  of  the  evangelistic  Sunday 
School  is  productive  of  finer  results  than  what  is 
known  as  Decision  Day.  This  is  a  day  when  the 
Sunday  School  hour  is  devoted  especially  to  stress- 
ing the  importance  and  the  necessity  of  a  definite 
commitment  of  the  life  to  Jesus  Christ.  One  or 
more  such  outstanding  days  should  be  planned  for 


98  EVANGELISM 

each  year.  Careful  preparation  should  be  made  for 
this  day  and  among  other  things  a  meeting  should 
be  arranged  for  all  the  Christian  scholars  of  the 
school  with  a  view  to  an  organized  campaign  of 
individual  effort  prior  to  and  in  preparation  for 
these  important  events. 

Suggested  programs  for  such  a  day,  as  well  as 
some  splendid  plans  for  conserving  the  results  of 
such  an  effort,  may  be  secured  at  the  headquar- 
ters of  the  International  Sunday  School  Associa- 
tion. 

2.  The  Sunday  evening  service.  This  service 
should  be  made  very  largely  evangelistic.  There 
is  no  good  reason  why  this  should  not  be  quite 
often  true  of  the  Sunday  morning  service.  But 
as  a  rule  the  Sunday  morning  congregation  is  com- 
posed more  largely  of  Christians,  especially  mem- 
bers of  the  particular  church  under  consideration, 
while  the  non-church-going  element  is  more  apt  to 
be  out  in  the  evening,  and  with  some  special  adver- 
tising can  often  be  brought  out  in  goodly  numbers; 
and  the  pastor  who  is  really  after  souls  will  not 
fail  to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunity  thus  of- 
fered him  to  press  home  the  claims  of  Christ  upon 
the  human  soul. 

I  think  it  is  safe  to  say  that  you  will  find  that 
where  church  life  is  the  most  vigorous  and  the  roll 
of  membership  increasing  that  the  pastors  of  such 
churches  are  preaching  with  the  evangelistic  appeal 
at  the  Sunday  evening  service. 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  99 

Will  you  pardon  just  this  once  a  reference  to 
my  own  experience?  When  I  began  my  ministry 
it  was  with  a  church  that  was  known  to  be  some- 
what fashionable— in  fact,  so  fashionable  that  for 
a  goodly  number  of  years  they  had  dispensed  al- 
together with  the  Sunday  night  service  for  the  lack 
of  any  one  to  attend  it.  This  service  was  imme- 
diately resumed  and  the  church  was  always  on 
Sunday  night  filled  to  the  doors  simply  by  making 
the  service  a  somewhat  popular  one,  and  devoting 
it  almost  exclusively  to  sermons  of  an  evangelistic 
nature. 

The  meetings  were  advertised  in  as  unique  and 
thorough  a  way  as  possible.  The  dignity  of  the 
work  was  never  lowered  and  while  popular  themes 
were  advertised,  no  subject  was  ever  chosen  not 
backed  up  by  a  Scripture  text,  and  in  which  there 
was  not  the  fullest  opportunity  for  preaching  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  only  hope  of  a  lost  world.  Good  busi- 
ness enterprise  sanctified  by  the  Holy  Spirit  will 
teach  the  church  how  to  advertise  without  being 
sensational  and  how  to  use,  and  use  properly,  the 
various  agencies  given  us  of  God  to  do  His  work. 

The  music  was  specialized.  The  devil  is  always 
afraid  of  good  music  in  the  church.  Maybe  that's 
the  reason  so  many  of  our  church  quarrels  start 
in  the  choir  loft — somebody  has  called  it  the  War 
Department.  But  it  always  gives  the  devil  "  sink- 
ing spells  "  to  hear  the  people  praising  God  with 
good  music  whether  they  do  it  with  a  ten-stringed 


100  EVANGELISM 

instrument  or  with  the  hundred  dehcate  muscles  of 
the  human  throat. 

You  say,  "  What  kind  of  music  ?  "  Every  kind 
— sacred  of  course.  Do  not  make  the  mistake  of 
paying  some  one  to  do  it  for  the  congregation. 
Above  every  other  kind  of  music  stress  congrega- 
tional singing  and  have  a  good  precentor  to  see 
that  it  is  done. 

Strangers  were  made  to  feel  at  home.  A  special 
committee  always  stood  at  the  door  both  at  the 
beginning  and  at  the  close  of  the  service  and  the 
stranger  when  willing  or  desirous  was  always 
brought  to  the  front  for  personal  greeting  from  the 
pastor.  The  audience  room  was  divided  into  sec- 
tions with  a  warm-hearted  member  in  each  section. 
It's  a  wonder  people  go  to  some  churches  at  all. 
And  what  many  churches  need,  and  all  of  them  to 
some  degree  doubtless,  is  to  have  their  frozen  for- 
mality and  their  false  respectability  and  their  frigid 
conventionality  smitten  that  in  place  of  these  things 
may  come  some  of  the  warm  outgoing  concern  and 
friendliness  that  draws  its  inspiration  from  the 
heart  of  Jesus  Christ. 

'  The  sermon  was  prepared,  as  a  rule,  with  a  view 
to  giving  the  invitation  and  the  holding  of  an  after- 
meeting,  and  I  honour  Him  in  whose  name  the  work 
was  done  when  I  say  that  He  graciously  put  the 
blessing  of  His  seal  upon  it. 

Too  often  the  church  is  nothing  more  than  a  mere 
club,  a  sort  of  religious  club  for  the  entertainment 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  101 

and  enjoyment  of  its  members.  What  does  such  a 
church  care  whether  its  doors  are  closed  Sunday- 
evening  or  not?  What  does  such  a  church  care 
whether  the  poor  wanderer  or  the  tired  labouring 
man  seeking  a  little  rest  from  the  week's  strenuous 
toil  or  the  youth  looking  for  recreation  are  brought 
in  and  saved  or  not  ? 

And  so  they  pass  along  the  street.  They  find  the 
church  with  its  doors  barred,  and  perhaps,  as  one 
church  had  the  words,  "  The  Gateway  to  Heaven," 
chiselled  over  the  door,  with  a  sign  below  reading 
"  Closed  for  the  Sumimer."  They  find  another  with 
a  seating  capacity  of  i,8oo  and  perhaps  thirty  or 
forty  present  and  the  preacher  announcing  for  the 
first  hymn  *'  What  means  this  eager  anxious 
throng !  "  Into  the  first  they  cannot  go  if  they 
will  and  into  the  second  they  will  not  go  if  they 
can.  They  want  to  be  where  people  are ;  they  want 
to  feel  the  warm  touch  and  the  sympathetic  throb  of 
life  and  if  they  do  not  find  it  in  one  place  they  will 
find  it  in  another  to  the  hurt  of  their  own  souls 
though  they  do  not  seem  to  know  it. 

It  would  seem  from  all  this  to  be  true  that  of  all 
the  functions  of  the  church  the  Sunday  night  service 
to  have  the  largest  possible  measure  of  success  must 
be  loyal  to  the  real  end  for  which  it  is  supposed 
to  exist, — the  winning  of  men  with  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  and  the  church  th^t  goes  to  sleep  over  its 
Sunday  night  service  will  find  on  waking  up,  if  it 
ever  does,  that  it  has  been  robbing  itself  of  many 


102  EVANGELISM 

of  the  stars  which  God  meant  should  one  day  adorn 
its  crown  of  rejoicing. 

3.  The  special  revival  effort  or  mission — 
the  Evangelistic  Campaign. 

The  evangelistic  pastor  will  always  recognize  the 
psychology  of  the  revival  and  give  to  it  its  rightful 
and  necessary  place  in  the  program  of  his  church 
work.  Every  preacher  should  by  all  means  read 
"  The  Spiritual  Economy  of  Revivals  of  Religion," 
written  years  ago  by  Dr.  Horace  Bushnell.  It  is 
one  of  the  very  strongest  presentations  of  this  truth 
ever  put  into  print.  He  calls  attention,  as  another 
has  said,  to  the  fact  that,  "  there  are  waves  in  the 
spiritual  world,  waves  of  special  power,  as  there  are 
waves  and  periods  everywhere.  Life  and  all  the 
surroundings  of  life  are  subject  to  the  laws  of  the 
tides.  It  is  day  and  night,  sleeping  and  waking, 
work  and  rest,  smiles  and  tears,  companionship  and 
sohtude,  business  and  worship.  The  law  of  the 
tides  is  not  a  shame  to  religion  but  it  is  natural  and 
just  what  we  would  expect.  If  the  progress  of  the 
cause  of  religion  by  periods  is  wrong,  what  shall  be 
thought  of  the  seasons,  the  intervals  of  drought  and 
rain  and  all  the  revolving  circles  of  outward 
change  ?  " 

There  are  four  ways  so  far  as  the  preaching  is 
concerned  in  which  this  phase  of  the  ministry  can 
be  carried  on. 

(a)  The  church  can  unite  in  a  city- wide  or 
neighbourhood  campaign  with  other  churches  and 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  103 

jointly  call  some  evangelist  to  assist  in  this  part  of 
the  work. 

(b)  Or,  it  may  call  the  evangelist  to  a  ministry 
among  its  own  people.  The  evangelist  is  not  sup- 
posed to  come,  as  some  one  has  said,  "  as  a  crutch 
propping  up  the  church  recreant  but  as  a  sword  in 
the  hand  of  the  church  militant/*  A.  B.  Earle,  an 
evangelist  of  blessed  memory,  used  to  say  he  came 
as  a  whiffle  horse^ — a  third  horse,  you  know,  that  is 
used  alongside  of  the  others  to  help  pull  a  heavy 
load. 

(c)  Or,  the  pastor  may  call  some  brother  minister 
to  assist  in  this  respect. 

(d)  Or,  what  is  in  many  respects  better  still,  he 
can  do  it  himself.  This  last  way,  as  we  said  a  while 
ago,  iS/the  ideal. 

As  a  rule  there  are  too  many  random  preachers 
in  revival  campaigns;  too  much  aimless  effort  like 
that  of  the  crazy  man  who  was  found  out  in  the 
woods  shooting  off  a  gun.  When  some  one  ap- 
proached him  and  asked  him  why  he  was  doing  so 
much  shooting,  he  said,  "  For  three  reasons.  It 
keeps  me  company,  it  scares  off  the  devil;  and  then 
I  may  hit  a  stray  coon."  This  is  avoided  of  course 
when  the  pastor  does  his  own  preaching.  There  are 
other  things  in  the  pastor's  favour,  but  whether  it  be 
done  one  way  or  another  he  will  always  make  room 
for  it  in  the  planning  of  his  work  and  pray  ear- 
nestly that  God  will  give  him  great  wisdom  in 
doing  it. 


104  EVANGELISM 

He  will  endeavour  to  thoroughly  prepare  his 
people  by  appropriate  sermons,  by  special  prayer 
services  in  the  church  and  in  the  homes;  by 
literature,  by  training  of  personal  workers  and  by 
publicity  of  every  legitimate  sort. 

And  then  when  the  revival  period  has  come,  the 
pastor  who  is  wise  will  guarantee  very  largely  its 
success  by  using  such  methods  as  are  best  adapted 
to  the  situation,  bearing  in  mind  always  the  genius 
and  temperament  of  the  people  among  whom  and 
for  whom  he  is  working.  Some  people  are  always 
crying,  "  Back  to  old  methods."  But  whether  the 
methods  are  old  or  new  they  must  have  regard  for 
intellect  and  culture  and  social  and  economic  con- 
ditions as  well.  I  can  imagine  that  some  methods 
will  work  better  in  the  slums  than  perhaps  they 
would  in  an  Episcopal  church. 

But  after  all,  methods  are  secondary;  results  are 
primary.  An  evangelist  once  asked  men  and  women 
to  show  their  acceptance  of  Christ  by  rising  and 
coming  forward.  After  the  meeting  a  young  theo- 
logical student  said  to  him,  "  I  was  glad  to  see 
people  converted  tonight,  but  I  don't  just  like  the 
way  you  asked  them  to  rise  and  come  forward." 
"  Neither  do  I,"  replied  the  evangelist,  "  How  do 
you  do  it?"  The  young  man  hesitated  and  then 
answered,  "  Well,  I  don't  know  that  I  do  it  at  all." 
"  Then,"  replied  the  evangelist,  "  I  like  the  way  I 
do  it  better  than  the  way  you  do  it." 

Young  men,  resolve  to  do  it — that  is,  to  be  an 


PASTORAL  EVANGELISM  105 

evangelistic  pastor,  a  proselyter  of  men;  skilled  if 
you  please  in  sermon-making,  in  the  nicety  of  meta- 
physical distinction  and  theological  definition,  but 
skilled  above  all  else  in  the  holy  art  of  winning 
souls.  I  could  wish  for  you  no  greater  honour  than 
this. 

And  when  we  preachers  learn  something  more  of 
what  it  means  to  have  a  passion  something  like  that 
of  Brainerd,  who  said,  "  I  care  not  where  or  how 
I  live  or  what  hardships  I  went  through,  so  I  could 
but  gain  souls  to  Christ " ;  of  the  sainted  Brown  of 
Haddington,  of  Whitefield  and  Baxter,  aye,  of  Paul 
who  said,  "  I  could  wish  that  myself  were  accursed 
from  Christ  for  my  brethren's  sake,"  we  shall  see 
this  country  of  ours  begin  to  be  swept  with  a  mighty 
tidal  wave  of  revival  grace,  and  the  church  of  Jesus 
Christ  shall  cease  to  be  what  Bishop  Berry  has  called 
an  '*  army  of  occupation,"  and  shall  become  as  he 
has  said,  *' an  army  of  conquest";  and  instead  of 
doing  but  two  or  three  per  cent  more  than  holding 
our  own  within  our  ecclesiastical  trenches,  we  shall 
be  found  out  in  the  open  field,  a  mighty  marching, 
conquering  host  for  Christ. 

Thus  marching  on,  never  resting,  never  tiring, 
spending  and  being  spent,  we  shall  carry  the  banners 
of  our  God  on  and  on,  until  the  eyes  of  those  who 
remain  unto  that  day  and  shall  not  prevent  those  of 
us  who  may  be  asleep,  if  God  shall  so  determine, 
shall  see  in  the  clouds  the  signs  of  their  returning 
Lord,  and  their  ears  shall  catch  the  sound  and  their 


106  EVANGELISM 

voices  shall  join  in  the  song  of  the  apocalyptic 
vision,  when  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  shall  be- 
come the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ, 
and  He  whose  right  it  is  to  rule  shall  reign  for  ever 
and  ever. 


V 
THE  UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN 


THE  UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN 

I.    Its  JustiRcation  as  seen  in, 

1.  God's  seal  upon  such  work  in  the  past. 

(a)  The  great  evangelistic  movements  of 
Whitefield,  Wesley,  Knapp,  Swann,  Net- 
tleton,  Baker,  Finney,  Moody,  et  al. 

2.  The  ever-continuing  need  and  adaptation  of  evan- 

gelistic means  to  the  end  desired. 

3.  The  comparative  results  of  this  kind  of  work. 

(a)  Carefully  compiled  statistics. 

(b)  Testimonies  of  pastors  and  reliable  citi- 

zens. 

4.  The  spirit  of  fellowship  promoted  and  manifested 

among  the  denominations, — ^Christian  Unity, 

5.  The  moral  and  spiritual  impress  upon  the  entire 

community. 

II.    Reasons  for  its  study. 

1.  It  is  a  component  part  of  church  history. 

2.  The  majority  of  ministers  must  and  do  deal  with  it. 

III.  Different  Types  of  it. 

1.  Simultaneous. 

(a)  City-wide. 

(b)  County-wide. 

2.  Centralized  City  Campaign. 

IV.  The  Place  of  Meeting. 

I.    Comparative  advantages  of 

(a)  Church  building. 

(b)  Public  Auditorium. 

(c)  Tabernacle  and   Tent. 

V.   The  Length  of  the  Campaign. 

I.    The  advantage  of  a  lengthy  series  of  meetings. 

VI.   The  Organization  of  the  Campaign. 

1.  The  Place  of  it. 

Must  not  be  emphasized  at  cost  of  dependence 
upon  the  Holy   Spirit. 

2.  The  Necessity  of  it.     Seen  in 

(a)  The  multifarious  aspects  of  the  work. 

(b)  The  need  of  enlisting  the  largest  number 

possible  in  the  work. 

3.  The  Method  of  it. 

(a)  The  Executive  Committee. 

(b)  The  various  Departmental  Committees. 

(c)  Their  duties  defined. 


THE   UNION    EVANGELISTIC   CAMPAIGN 

EVERYBODY  believes  in  Evangelism,  but  I 
am  to  speak  to  you  today  of  a  form  of 
evangelistic  work  which  has  always  been 
under  the  fire  of  the  severest  criticism.  I  refer  to 
Vocational  or  so-called  Professional  Evangelism, 
especially  as  it  operates  in  union  revival  services 
where  all  or  the  majority  of  the  churches  of  a  given 
community  unite  in  a  general  evangelistic  campaign, 
such  churches  becoming  subservient  for  the  time 
being  to  the  best  interests  of  the  general  movement 
and  subordinating  each  one  its  own  meetings  to 
those  in  which  it  has  become  associated. 

The  criticism  mentioned  has  not  been  altogether 
unmerited.  But  it  would  be  interesting  to  make  a 
study  of  the  adverse  conditions  under  which  such 
evangelism  has  been  compelled  to  operate,  and 
which  in  themselves  are  largely  responsible  for  the 
incompetencies  and  sometimes  indiscretions  which 
have  so  often  brought  evangelism  into  ill-repute,  and 
this  is  true  only  because  of  the  failure  of  the  church 
to  throw  about  this  particular  form  of  religious 
activity  its  arms  of  ecclesiastical  restraint  and  super- 
vision. Such  evangelism,  however,  deserves  much 
credit  even  as  the  case  stands,  for  not  a  little  of  it 
has  been  remarkably  sane  and  thorough  and  efficient 

109 


110  EVANGELISM 

and  has  brought  to  the  church,  as  any  candid  inves- 
tigator will  cheerfully  admit,  a  goodly  portion  of  her 
numerical  increase  across  the  years  that  have  gone. 

The  justification  of  the  united  effort  is  seen  in 
five  things. 

( 1 )  In  that  God  has  set  His  seal  upon  such  work 
in  a  marvellous  way  throughout  all  the  history  of  the 
church.  Who  could  ever  recall  or  read  of  the  great 
evangelistic  movements  under  George  Whitefield 
with  their  astounding  increase  in  church  member- 
ship and  to  which  some  of  our  religious  denomina- 
tions owe  their  continued  existence;  or  the  work  of 
Finney,  preaching  for  instance  in  Rochester  in  the 
thirties  when  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of 
A'ppeals  walked  down  the  aisle  for  Christ,  and  on 
which  day  there  was  started  that  remarkable  revival 
that  converted  every  lawyer  in  the  community  and 
started  a  wave  of  religious  influence  over  that  state 
and  others  that  swept  I50,(X)0  souls  into  the  King- 
dom of  Christ;  or  of  Nettleton  and  Knapp  and 
Moody  and  hosts  of  others  and  not  say,  as  Wesley 
said  when  he  heard  of  the  revival  at  Northampton, 
"  Surely  this  is  the  Lord's  doing  and  it  is  marvellous 
in  our  eyes."? 

(2)  In  the  ever-continuing  need  of  concentrated 
and  united  effort  along  this  line,  and  the  adaptation 
of  evangelistic  means  to  the  end  desired. 

That  religious  life  should  need  revival  is  not 
strange.    Permanent  growth  and  advance  of  every 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN  111 

kind  is  after  all,  as  we  have  seen,  a  thing  of  season, 
and  that  there  is  in  the  religious  revival  something 
of  a  divinely  appointed  periodical  nature  is  some- 
thing that  no  thoughtful  individual  can  for  a  mo- 
ment doubt.  Some  things  moreover  are  accom- 
plished by  the  special  united  effort  that  could  per- 
haps never  be  accomplished  in  any  other  way. 

Each  age  has  presented  its  own  particular  cause 
for  the  spiritual  decline  which  characterized  it  and 
as  a  consequence  of  which  the  winning  of  man  to 
Christ  by  the  work  of  the  regular  pastorate  was 
hard.  Nor  is  the  age  in  which  we  live  the  most 
conducive  to  such  results. 

We  are  in  the  midst  of  a  seething  social  unrest 
and  of  industrial  exigencies  such  as  ten  decades  ago 
were  never  dreamed  of.  The  tide  of  immigration 
still  flows  in  upon  us  and  not  without  its  menace. 
The  daring  corruption  of  politics  amazes  one.  Vice 
is  exploited  by  machinery  well  organized  and  pow- 
erful and  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil  seem 
to  be  intrenched  in  the  very  house  of  God  itself. 

The  task  of  the  minister,  however,  is  under  no 
circumstances  an  easy  one.  He  works  tremen- 
dously hard  and  the  results,  the  numerical  results  at 
least,  are  meagre  and  ofttimes  discouraging,  and 
at  times  both  the  ministers  and  the  most  active 
members  of  the  church  feel  that  the  situation  is  such 
that  nothing  short  of  the  unusual  and  extraordinary 
can  meet  it.  And  nothing  at  times  seems  quite  so 
well  adapted  to  quicken  the  laggard  spirit  of  the 


112  EVANGELISM 

believer,  to  arouse  the  self-satisfied  and  the  wicked 
unbeliever  to  a  converting  sense  of  his  need  of 
Christ,  to  impress  the  whole  community  with  the 
importance  of  the  things  of  God  and  to  rout  the 
forces  of  evil  in  general  as  the  uniting  of  the 
Christian  forces  in  a  well  organized  and  carefully 
executed  campaign  of  evangelistic  work. 

But  this  has  been  proven  repeatedly  by  experience 
throughout  the  long  past  and  therefore  needs  no 
further  elucidation  at  this  time. 

(3)  In  the  comparative  results  of  this  kind  of 
work. 

In  connection  with  one  of  the  prominent  religious 
movements  of  our  country  it  was  my  privilege  to 
have  access  to  a  careful  census  made  by  the  pastors 
of  over  fifty  of  the  largest  cities  of  the  land  and 
the  fact  was  revealed  that  the  largest  gains  to  church 
membership  in  every  instance  were  made  through  the 
efforts  of  evangelism  such  as  we  are  now  discussing. 
.  Let  me  take  for  instance  the  city  of  Boston,  where 
in  1909  Dr.  Chapman  had  conducted  a  union  simul- 
taneous campaign  of  evangelistic  work.  A  chart 
was  prepared  showing  the  accessions  to  church  mem- 
bership for  ten  years  including  the  year  after  the 
campaign  mentioned  was  conducted.  This  was  in- 
dicated each  year  by  a  black  line  crossing  the  chart 
horizontally.  The  chart  was  about  two  feet  wide. 
The  first  year  the  line  went  halfway  across; 
the  next  year  it  went  a  trifle  farther;  the  third  year 
it  went  back  to  about  nine  inches,  the  fourth  year 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN   113 

still  farther  back,  and  then  out  to  about  nine;  the 
next  year  it  was  at  twelve,  and  so  on,  but  the  ninth 
year,  the  year  of  the  Chapman  campaign  it  went 
clear  across  the  chart  and  off  on  the  other  side ;  and 
an  interesting  thing  about  it  is  that  the  very  next 
year,  the  line,  although  of  course  it  fell  back  a  bit, 
went  farther  across  the  chart  than  during  any  of 
the  eight  years  prior  to  Dr.  Chapman's  work.  We 
have  already  made  reference  to  this  on  page  50 
where  we  discussed  the  results  of  the  union  simul- 
taneous campaign  of  evangcHstic  work  under  the 
direction  of  Dr.  J.  Wilbur  Chapman  in  Boston,  to 
the  account  of  which  the  reader  is  referred.  A 
most  interesting  thing  about  the  work,  as  already 
shown  by  the  chart  used  on  page  50,  was  that  Dr. 
Chapman's  efforts  left  conditions  better  for  church 
work  the  year  following  than  they  had  been  for  the 
eight  and  no  doubt  many  more  of  the  previous 
years.  I  found  this  to  be  so  universally  the  case  that 
I  grew  bold  enough  to  challenge  the  ministers  at 
this  point  before  even  the  charts  were  produced. 

(4)  In  that  nothing  else  so  manifests  and  pro- 
motes the  spirit  of  fellowship  among  the  denomina- 
tions and  at  the  same  time  reveals  to  the  world  the 
unity  of  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ. 

The  world  refuses  to  be  conquered  by  a  divided 
Church.  And  how  could  there  be  anything  more 
conducive  to  spiritual  unity,  anything  more  calcu- 
lated to  remove  jealousy  and  suspicion  and  that 
pugnacity  that  tries  to  strengthen  its  own  position  by 


114  EVANGELISM 

decrying  that  of  another,  anything  more  likely  to 
magnify  the  one  great  purpose  of  the  church  and  to 
show  us  how  far  after  all  from  vital  are  some  of 
the  differences  which  separate  us,  than  working  to- 
gether in  earnest  effort  to  bring  the  lost  to  Jesus 
Christ?  Ministers  as  a  rule  tabulate  this  as  one  of 
the  blessed  results  of  united  revival  effort. 

(5)  In  the  impression  made  upon  the  entire 
community. 

When  a  single  church  revival  is  going  on  the  town 
hardly  knows  it,  but  when  all  the  churches  unite 
and  the  entire  Christian  force  is  enlisted,  the  very 
size  of  the  undertaking  and  the  increased  press 
publicity  made  possible  only  in  this  way,  simply  com- 
pels the  city  to  sit  up  and  take  notice.  Matters  of 
public  import  can  the  more  effectively  be  encouraged 
or  rebuked  as  the  situation  may  warrant.  Towns 
and  cities  literally  by  the  hundreds  voted  *'  dry  " 
as  a  result  of  public  sentiment  aroused  in  this  \vay. 
The  fountains  of  public  life  have  been  purified  and 
whole  communities  have  been  made  over  in  social 
and  civil  betterment. 

Recently  a  resolution  signed  by  practically  every 
officer  in  the  city  was  read  from  the  platform  of 
a  meeting  such  as  we  are  now  discussing.  After 
speaking  of  the  thousands  of  citizens  who  were  for- 
saking evil  of  their  ways,  it  said  among  other  things, 
"  Proud  we  have  ever  been  of  the  community  in 
whose  behalf  we  have  been  called  to  serve;  and  de- 
sirous all  of  discharging  the  duties  of  our  respective 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN   115 

offices  as  ably  and  straightforwardly  as  any  of  our 
citizens  could  desire,  we  therefore  conceive  it  to 
be  but  just  and  right  at  this  time  to  acknowledge 
without  reserve  our  sense  of  obligation  to  such  a 
work  as  this,  which  has  not  only  enabled  us  to  see 
and  realize  most  keenly,  both  as  citizens  and  office- 
holders, the  duties  which  we  owe  to  ourselves  and 
to  the  public,  but  at  the  same  time  has  imbued  that 
same  public  with  ardent  zeal  to  perform  their  ap- 
pointed tasks  as  militant  and  God-fearing  men  and 
women/* 

Nothing  but  a  union  evangelistic  campaign  could 
produce  a  testimony  like  that. 

These  five  things  in  themselves  should  be  reason 
enough  for  a  careful  study  of  this  form  of  Christian 
work,  but  there  are  two  things  especially  that  weigh 
very  heavily  just  at  this  point;  two  very  special 
reasons  for  its  study. 

The  first  is  that  this  kind  of  work  is  a  component 
part  of  church  history.  And  the  minister  who  is  to 
be  in  any  sense  at  all  a  student  of  the  life  of  the 
institution  he  professes  himself  called  to  serve,  must 
give  attention  to  this  particular  and  important  aspect 
of  it. 

But  in  the  next  place  the  majority  of  ministers 
must  and  do  deal  with  it  in  their  own  ministry. 
There  will  come  a  time  in  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
community  in  which  you  serve  when  the  consensus 
of  opinion  will  be  that  nothing  else  will  quite  so 
meet  the  needs  of  the  community  and  serve  the  best 


116  EVANGELISM 

interests  of  the  church  as  a  union  campaign  of  evan- 
gelistic work. 

Nor  is  it  altogether  beyond  the  stretch  of  pos- 
sibility that  you  yourself  may  under  God  be  called 
upon  to  lead  in  such  an  undertaking.  It  is  all- 
important  therefore  from  either  standpoint  that  you 
should  be  as  thoroughly  acquainted  as  possible  with 
the  different  forms  of  this  kind  of  work  and  the 
best  means  of  bringing  it  to  a  successful  issue. 

TYPES   OF  UNION   EVANGELISTIC   WORK 

There  are  two  different  types  of  union  evangelis- 
tic work.  First,  there  is  the  Simultaneous  Cam- 
paign. This  may  be  either  city-wide  or  county- 
wide. 

This  in  the  case  of  a  city  consists  in  districting 
the  city  and  securing  an  evangelist,  with  such  special 
workers  as  may  be  needed,  for  each  district.  For 
several  reasons  a  too  great  multiplicity  of  districts 
is  not  wise.  If  the  districts,  however,  are  large 
enough  to  furnish  a  population  of  sufficient  size,  if 
the  series  of  meetings  is  sufficiently  protracted  and 
the  strongest  possible  men  secured  to  lead  in  the 
work,  this  plan  is  a  most  admirable  one.  In  a 
County  Campaign  the  various  cities  and  towns  are 
used  as  centres.  Literature  on  these  methods  may 
be  secured. 

The  second  type  of  this  kind  of  work  is  the 
Centralized  City  Campaign  in  which  one  central 
meeting  is  held  for  the  entire  city  in  either  some 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN   117 

large  church  building  or  public  auditorium  or  tent 
or  specially  constructed  tabernacle. 


THE   PLACE  OF   MEETING 

I  have  personally  always  felt  that  it  would  be  a 
splendid  thing  if  all  such  work  could  be  conducted 
within  the  church  buildings  themselves.  Not  for 
the  reason  that  this  would  eliminate  an  item  of  ex- 
pense, because  there  is  absolutely  no  financial  prob- 
lem connected  with  a  successful  campaign  of  this 
kind.  The  money  comes  easily.  But  a  meeting  in 
the  church  centres  the  interest  where  it  ought  to  be 
and  leaves  a  hallowed  memory  about  the  church,  all 
of  which  is  not  without  its  sentimental  value  for 
other  days. 

But  two  objections  always  militate  against  the 
church  building  for  such  work. 

It  is  never  large  enough  for  a  meeting  of  any 
considerable  size. 

Say  what  you  will,  certain  elements  of  a  city's 
population  will  not  go  so  readily  into  a  church  as 
into  some  other  kind  of  a  building. 

A  public  auditorium  built  for  other  purposes  is 
the  poorest  of  all  places  for  evangelistic  work. 

Such  buildings  usually  have  a  gallery  which  be- 
comes a  "  catch  all  "  for  just  the  people  you  want  to 
reach  and  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  get  them  to 
"  come  down  "  in  any  sense  of  the  word. 

Such  a  building  is  usually  seated  with  opera  chairs 


118  EVANGELISM 

which  are  very  noisy,  especially  at  the  time  of  the 
after-meeting  when  the  principal  part  of  the  audi- 
ence rises  to  go  out,  and  at  which  time  quiet  is 
especially  needed. 

Such  buildings  are  very  noisy  by  reason  of  having 
a  floor,  and  likewise  for  the  same  reason  are  hard 
to  be  kept  in  cleanly  condition. 

Such  buildings  having  been  used  for  entertain- 
ments, public  lectures,  etc.,  the  people  attending  in 
a  revival  service  are  apt  to  use  their  accustomed 
freedom  in  passing  out  at  any  time  they  choose. 
This  is  especially  noticeable  in  the  closing  part  of  the 
evening  when  the  utmost  quiet  and  attention  ought 
to  reign. 

Such  a  building  usually  has  memories  clustering 
about  it  which  are  not  always  conducive  to  spiritual 
results. 

A  tent  is  good  but  is  always  hard  to  speak  in.  It 
is  subject  also  to  collapse  from  storm  and  lacks 
the  privacy  which  at  times  it  is  desirable  to  have  in 
connection  with  such  work. 

Perhaps  all  things  considered  the  temporary 
wooden  tabernacle  is  best  suited  for  a  great  meeting 
of  this  character. 

They  are  inexpensive.  Such  a  building  seating 
3,000  people  can  be  built,  by  renting  the  lumber  or 
buying  at  wholesale  and  reselling,  for  a  sum  ranging 
from  $800.00  to  $1,500,00  depending  altogether 
upon  local  conditions. 

They  are  commodius;  the  acoustic  properties  are 
always  good;  they  can  be  seated  to  every  needed 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN    119 

advantage;  they  are  quiet  by  reason  of  shaving  floors 
and  are  exceptionally  cleanly  for  the  same  reason, 
and  can  be  built  in  a  way  best  adapted  for  the  needs 
at  hand. 

The  very  building  of  such  a  structure,  the  sight 
of  it,  the  novelty  of  it,  the  size  of  it  all  furnishes  an 
advertising  item  of  tremendous  value. 

In  regard  to  the  length  of  such  a  series  of  meet- 
ings, this  of  course  must  be  governed  very  largely 
by  the  interest  taken  in  them.  As  long  as  the 
interest  is  well  sustained  the  meetings  should 
continue. 

It  is  never  wise  to  plan  for  a  campaign  of  less 
than  three  weeks.  It  takes  at  least  this  long  for  the 
church  herself  to  be  reasonably  revived  and  for  a 
fair  effort  to  bring  the  unsaved  to  a  decision  in 
reasonably  satisfactory  numbers. 

Nor  is  it  any  sign  that  it  is  best  to  stop  even  if 
by  such  a  time  there  are  no  apparent  results  of  this 
latter  kind.  Then  too,  one  must  remember  the  ac- 
cumulative aspect  of  such  work.  Every  one  hun- 
dred decisions  makes  it  just  that  much  easier  for 
the  next  one  hundred  to  decide.  Eight  weeks  will 
often  accomplish  four  times  as  much  as  would  have 
been  accomplished  in  four  weeks. 

ORGANIZATION   OF  THE   CAMPAIGN 

In  studying  a  campaign  of  evangelism  of  the  kind 
under  consideration  three  phases  of  the  work  must 
be  given  attention :  Organization,  Preparation  and  "^ 
Operation;  the  first  of  which  ought  to  be  studied 


120  EVANGELISM 

from   the   standpoint  of   its   place,   necessity   and 
method. 

THE   PLACE  OF   ORGANIZATION 

Organization  must  not  of  course  be  emphasized 
at  the  cost  of  dependence  upon  the  Holy  Spirit.  To 
work  without  Him  and  to  work  through  Him — or 
rather  to  have  Him  work  through  us — is  all  the 
difference  between  trying  to  run  a  big  machine  by 
hand  and  attaching  it  to  the  dynamics  of  a  powerful 
electric  motor.  The  results  of  a  revival  effort  that 
is  wholly  man-made  cannot  prove  otherwise  than 
pitifully  disappointing. 

Nevertheless  to  magnify  the  Holy  Spirit's  part 
gives  no  warrant  for  minimizing  man's  part.  I 
grow  a  bit  weary  of  hearing  people  say  that  all  a 
preacher  needs  is  to  depend  upon  the  Holy  Spirit, 
to  be  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  his  church  will 
be  filled  with  people.  This  is  not  true.  There  are 
thousands  of  devoted  and  godly  ministers  all  over 
the  land  who  are  just  as  Spirit-filled  as  Whitefield 
or  Moody  or  Campbell  Morgan  ever  were,  and  these 
results  do  not  attend  their  ministry. 

The  human  equation  dare  not  be  eliminated  and 
even  in  the  economy  of  grace  results  are  not  to  be 
expected  without  the  employment  of  means.  There 
are  those  to  whom  such  language  as  "  How  to  Pro- 
mote a  Revival "  is  offensive,  as  if  man  were  by 
his  own  devices  presuming  to  dictate  and  guide  the 
operations  of  the  Spirit  of  God.     But  that  is  a 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN   121 

thoughtless  and  reckless  judgment.  If  we  work  as 
though  the  revival  were  entirely  our  own  and  pray 
as  if  it  were  entirely  God's  there  will  be  no  doubt 
as  to  what  God  will  do. 


THE   NECESSITY   OF   ORGANIZATION 

This  is  to  be  seen  first,  in  the  multifarious  aspects 
of  the  work.  There  are  few  undertakings  of  any 
kind  either  in  the  religious  or  secular  world  in  which 
there  are  so  many  phases  of  the  work  demanding 
attention  and  so  many  details  connected  with  the 
proper  conduct  of  the  same.  And  to  attempt  to 
care  for  an  undertaking  of  this  kind  without  the 
most  systematic  and  thorough  organization  is  like  a 
general  saying  to  his  soldiers,  *'  Come  on,  boys,"  and 
going  out  to  war  in  any  old  way.  It  is  like  a  con- 
tractor trying  to  throw  up  a  modern  skyscraper 
without  any  plans  in  his  head  or  a  blue-print  in  his 
hand.  It  is  like  a  pugilist  trying  to  strike  a  blow 
with  his  fingers  spread  instead  of  organizing  them 
into  a  fist  and  doing  the  thing  in  the  proper  way. 
It  is  like  a  hunter  who  pulls  the  trigger  before  he 
knows  in  what  township  the  bullet  is  likely  to  strike. 
There  are  preachers  who  preach  like  that;  like  the 
young  tourist — 

"  Who  saw  a  deer ;  blazed  at  it  hot ; 
The  hasty  charge  went  wide. 
But  though  he  failed  to  guide  the  shot; 
By  Jove,  he  shot  the  _guide !  " 


122  EVANGELISM 

The  necessity  of  organization  is  seen  next  in  the 
need  of  enlisting  the  largest  number  possible  in  the 
work. 

Mr.  Moody  used  to  say  that  he  never  did  any- 
thing himself  that  he  could  get  any  body  else  to  do. 
Such  a  policy  is  good  for  the  people  and  it*s  good 
for  the  work. 

Some  ladies  went  one  day  to  their  preacher  and 
asked  him  for  something  to  do,  and  he  replied  that 
he  really  didn't  know  of  anything  to  be  done.  Now, 
a  real  preacher  would  never  be  guilty  of  a  thing 
like  that. 

One  secret  of  success  in  an  evangelistic  campaign 
is  getting  as  many  Christian  people  at  work  as  pos- 
sible, and  with  all  the  possible  and  necessary  divi- 
sions of  such  an  undertaking  and  the  various  details 
connected  with  them  calling  for  attention,  the  evan- 
gelistic campaign  that  does  not  make  use  of  all  the 
force  at  its  command  cannot  hope  for  any  large 
measure  of  success. 


THE   METHOD  OF  ORGANIZATION 

The  best  method,  as  I  take  it,  is  something  as 
follows : 

Let  each  church  in  the  movement  be  represented 
by  its  pastor  and  one  or  two  laymen  on  a  General 
Committee,  which  committee  after  it  has  appointed 
the  Executive  Committee  will  be  dissolved. 

The  Executive  Committee  should  consist  of  a 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN   123 

number  of  pastors  and  laymen  large  enough  to  be 
representative  but  not  unwieldly.  This  committee, 
which  of  course  at  all  times  will  be  in  chief  control, 
will  select  the  best  possible  representatives  for  the 
following  special  committees: 

The  Finance  Committee  which  will  give  attention 
to  securing  the  monies  for  the  current  expense  of 
the  meeting  and  whose  treasurer  will  pay  only  such 
bills  as  are  properly  endorsed  by  the  chairman  of 
the  Executive  Committee.  The  best  method  for 
this  committee  to  pursue  is  to  have  the  expense 
underwritten  by  guarantors  in  amounts  ranging 
from  one  dollar  up  and  then  liquidated  by  offerings 
in  the  meetings. 

The  Publicity  Committee  which  shall  see  that 
ample  reports  appear  in  the  daily  newspapers,  that 
proper  announcements  of  all  meetings  are  made 
through  the  same  and  other  mediums  and  that  the 
general  meeting  as  well  as  all  special  meetings  are 
brought  to  public  attention  in  the  most  advantageous 
ways  possible. 

Among  other  splendid  means  of  such  advertising 
are:  (a)  a  large  streamer  across  the  street;  (b)  a 
painted  sign  before  or  on  each  church  in  the  move- 
ment; (c)  "A"  boards  on  the  street  corners;  (d) 
placards  in  store  and  residence  windows;  (e)  printed 
folders  carried  into  the  homes;  (f)  chalk-writing 
on  sidewalks;  (g)  stereopticon  work  on  side-walks 
and  against  buildings;  (h)  door  knob  hangers;  (i) 
signs  in  and  on  street  cars;  (j)  tickets  and  dodgers 


124  EA^ANGELISM 

in  grocery,  meat  and  laundry  packages;  (k)  delivery 
wagons  and  automobiles;  (1)  street  wagon  with 
megaphone,  phonograpli  or  stereopticon  and  appro- 
priate printed  signs. 

The  Devotional  Committee  which  shall  arrange 
for  places  and  leaders  for  all  cottage  prayer  meetings 
and  other  devotional  services  and  also  take  in  charge 
the  organizing  of  the  Prayer  Circle  work. 

The  Music  Committee,  consisting  usually  of  two 
from  each  church,  which  shall  give  attention  to  or- 
ganizing a  large  union  choir  of  as  many  voices  as 
it  is  possible  to  secure. 

The  Usher  Committee  whose  particular  work  it 
will  be  to  select  all  those  who  are  to  serve  in  the 
capacity  of  ushers  or  personal  workers.  This  com- 
mittee should  be  composed  of  pastors. 

The  Building  Committee  which  shall  have  a 
proper  place  for  the  meeting  selected  and  made 
ready.  This  committee  is  needed  only  in  case  of 
the  Simultaneous  Campaign  or  when  an  especially 
constructed  building  is  used  for  the  meetings. 

The  Canvassing  Committee  which  shall  district 
the  city  and  secure  workers  to  go  as  friendly  visitors 
into  every  home  with  a  neatly  printed  invitation  to 
the  meetings  as  an  introduction,  and  secure  on  can- 
vassing slips  all  necessary  information  concerning 
the  number  in  the  family  not  Christians,  their 
church  preference  and  other  such  information  as 
will  be  helpful  to  pastors  in  their  visitation  and 
effort  to  enlist  their  interest  in  the  meetings. 


UNION  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN   125 

The  Offering  Committee  to  give  whatever  atten- 
tion may  be  necessary  to  the  remuneration  of  the 
evangehst.  • 

There  may  be  other  committees  from  time  to 
time  throughout  the  campaign  to  care  for  some  of 
its  special  features,  but  these  are  those  necessary  for 
the  major  aspects  of  the  work.  These  committees, 
except  perhaps  the  last  one,  should  be  appointed  and 
become  operative,  some  of  them  many  months,  be- 
fore the  campaign  opens. 

In  closing  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  reiterate 
and  to  emphasize  what  was  said  a  while  ago,  viz., 
that  the  importance  of  organization  cannot  be  over- 
estimated. As  noted  a  moment  ago  there  is  a  tend- 
ency on  the  part  of  some  to  decry  organization. 
They  tell  us  to  depend  upon  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  As  if  the  Holy  Spirit  appreciates  incoher- 
ency  and  confusion  more  than  He  does  unity  and 
co-operation ! 

Organization  is  so  important  that  wherever  pos- 
sible it  is  advisable  to  have  an  advance  man  on  the 
field  to  give  his  personal  attention  to  it.  It  can 
however,  when  personal  supervision  is  impossible, 
be  attended  to  by  correspondence.  But  when  this 
is  done  there  are  two  pieces  of  counsel  that  are  like 
"  apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver." 

The  first  is  that  the  party  in  charge  of  such 
correspondence  should  begin  early  and  keep  ever- 
lastingly at  it. 

The  second  is  that  the  pastors  before  calling  an 


126  EVANGELISM 

evangelist  should  satisfy  themselves  as  to  his  ex- 
perience and  ability  and  then  devote  themselves  with 
unquestioning  loyalty  to  his  suggestions  and  plans 
for  the  organization  as  v^ell  as  every  other  part 
of  the  work. 

But  to  attempt  an  evangelistic  campaign  without 
organization  is  like  bombarding  the  Dardanelles  with 
buckshot  instead  of  1 6-inch  Krupp  or  a  42-centi- 
metre howitzer. 

Whether  you  serve  in  the  pastorate  or  in  the 
special  evangelistic  field  it  is  a  work  mighty  and 
honourable,  but  it  is  also  a  work  so  delicate  and  so 
big  with  eternal  issues  that  angels,  I  think,  while 
they  would  covet  the  privilege  and  the  glory  of 
doing  it,  would  tread  the  way  with  trembling  steps. 
And  just  as  a  general  would  not  rush  out  on  the 
field  of  battle  without  a  well-organized  force  at  his 
side,  so  in  this  holy  undertaking  beware,  lest  by 
rushing  in  single-handed  and  alone,  or  in  the  "  any 
old  way  "  sort  of  spirit,  you  lose  much  of  the  victory 
which  God  always  gives  to  the  workman  who 
studies  to  show  himself  approved  unto  God,  not 
alone  in  rightly  dividing  the  word  of  truth  but  in 
calling  into  service  the  otherwise  unused  capacities 
and  powers  of  his  people  and  rightly  dividing  the 
labour  of  the  organization  among  them. 


VI 
PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION 

I.    Oganization. 

1.  The  Place  of  it. 

Must  not  be  emphasized  at  cost  of  dependence 
upon  the  Holy  Spirit. 

2.  The  Necessity  of  it.    Seen  in, 

(a)  The  multifarious  aspects  of  the  work. 

(b)  The  need  of  enlisting  the  largest  number 

possible  in  the  work. 

3.  The  method  of  it. 

(a)  The  Executive  Committee. 

(b)  The  various  Departmental  Committees. 

(c)  Their  duties  defined. 

II.   Preparation. — Must  invest  to  get  returns. 

1.  Prayer. 

(a)  The  value  of  Prayer 

(b)  How   modern   prayer   theories   have   af- 

fected us. 

(c)  Prayer   and  the  great   spiritual   awaken- 

ings of  the  past. 

(d)  The  Prayer  Circle. 

(e)  The  Cottage  Prayer  meetings. 

2.  Preparatory  Preaching. 

(a)  Its  particular  character. 

3.  Personal  Work. 

(a)  Workers'  Training  Class. 

(b)  Systematic   effort   at   soul    winning   with 

reports,  counsel  and  prayer. 

4.  Publicity. 

(a)  lis  Legitimacy. 

(b)  Its  Importance. 

(c)  I*^s  various  Phases, 


VI 

PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION 

THE  man  who  does  not  invest  must  not  expect 
any  return.  If  we  would  have  God  stir  the 
community  with  mighty  revival  power  it  is 
both  worth  our  while  and  altogether  necessary  to 
stop  and  ask  ourselves  what  we  are  willing  to  do  to 
bring  it  about.  There  is  no  use  expecting  great 
things  from  God  without  attempting  great  things 
for  God. 

The  reason  Germany,  when  the  recent  great  war 
first  started,  made  the  world  stand  aghast  at  her 
mighty  military  achievements  is  because  the  declara- 
tion of  war  found  her  in  a  state  of  practically  per- 
fect preparedness.  And  you  might  as  well  expect 
to  make  a  street  car  go  uphill  by  blowing  your 
breath  against  the  near  window  pane  as  to  expect 
to  capture  a  community  for  Christ  without  training 
your  soldiers  and  studying  the  method  of  attack  and 
making  every  possible  preparation  for  the  achieve- 
ment of  a  speedy  and  splendid  victory. 

And  so  the  value  of  the  preparatory  work  of  an 
evangelistic  campaign  cannot  be  overestimated.  The 
pity  of  it  is  that  it  is  usually  underestimated.  In 
the  very  thought  of  such  a  work  we  need  to  hear  a 

129 


130  EVANGELISM 

voice  ringing  down  from  the  skies,  "  Prepare  ye  the 
way  of  the  Lord." 

In  the  proper  preparation  for  a  campaign  of  this 
kind  four  elements  always  enter,  Prayer,  Preaching, 
Personal  Work  and  Publicity. 

PRAYER 

The  first  essential  element  for  such  a  campaign 
is  Prayer. 

The  greatest  power  in  the  world  is  prayer  power. 
What  has  it  not  done!  It  has  shut  the  mouth  of 
lions  and  opened  the  gates  of  prison.  But  some  one 
has  said,  "  It  is  the  forgotten  secret  of  the  church 
today."  The  reason  a  church  sometimes  has  an 
unsuccessful  pastor  is  because  the  pastor  has  a 
prayerless  church. 

What  might  not  God  do  for  His  people  if  they 
really  believed  in  prayer  and  practised  it?  I  say, 
"  really  believed  "  in  it.  There  was  a  time  when 
some  people  believed  in  it  mightily  and  wrought 
wonders  by  its  power.  Times  like  those  of  John 
Knox  whose  prayers  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots>  used  to 
say  she  feared  more  then  all  the  armies  of  Europe. 
Times  like  those  of  Luther  who  spent  a  night  in  a 
hotel  and  the  spy  hired  to  watch  him  told  his  em- 
ployer the  next  morning  that  Luther  had  prayed 
all  night  and  that  he  might  as  well  abandon  the  hope 
of  conquering  a  man  who  prayed  like  that.  Times 
like  those  of  Baxter  who  stained  his  study  walls 
with  his  praying  breath;  like  those  of  Whitefield 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     131 

who  said,  "  O,  Lord,  give  me  souls  or  take  my 
soul " ;  like  those  of  President  Backus  who  died  on 
his  knees  praying  for  the  conversion  of  his  fellow- 
men. 

And  these  days  too  are  not  altogether  without 
their  giants — giants  of  prayer  who  know  how  to 
tarry  at  the  footstool  of  grace  until  the  assurance 
comes  that  the  thing  shall  be  done. 

But  the  prayer-life  in  general  is  far  from  vigor- 
ous today,  and  it  would  not  seem  to  take  an  exceed- 
ingly critical  analysis  to  ascertain  that  our  modern 
prayer  theories  have  not  been  altogether  without 
effect  upon  faith  in  this  regard.  It  is  so  much  easier 
to  doubt  in  the  presence  of  mystery  than  to  believe. 
For  the  most  of  us  it  is  perhaps  for  this  reason  that 
we  have  an  emasculated  rather  than  an  impervious 
faith  in  this  respect. 

It  is  easier,  especially  for  the  unthinking  indi- 
vidual, to  believe  in  prayer  as  a  spiritual  gymnastic 
affecting  no  one  but  the  performer  himself  than  to 
believe  in  it  as  anything  that  could  possibly  in- 
fluence the  will  of  God.  And  with  our  pulpits  all 
too  well  supplied  with  the  disciples  of  doubt,  hiding 
behind  that  euphonious  but  sometimes  treacherous 
thing  called,  *'  Modern  Scholarship,"  enlisted  as  they 
perhaps  have  never  been  before  in  an  ubiquitous  and 
insinuating  campaign  in  the  name  of  "  scientific  im- 
possibility," it  is  not  strange  that  the  prayer-life 
of  the  church  has  not  been  at  times  untouched 
by  it. 


132  EVANGELISM 

But  the  careful  thinker  and  the  devout  beHever 
is  not  disturbed.  He  knows  the  voice  of  science, 
and  he  knows  the  Word  of  God.  Perhaps  some 
exponents  of  the  impossibiHty  of  any  direct  com- 
munication with  God  could  learn  something  from 
the  experience  of  George  John  Romanes,  that  great 
scientist  of  tremendous  intellect,  who  hadn't  prayed 
for  twenty-five  years  because  his  mind  wouldn't  let 
him,  but  who  fought  his  way  at  last  to  the  reason- 
ableness of  prayer  by  a  process  of  pure  reason. 

At  any  rate  I  like  a  faith  like  that  of  the  great 
scholar  and  statesman  of  Holland,  Abraham 
Kuyper.     Listen  to  him.     He  says: 

"  If  then,  after  all  legitimate  examination  and 
explanation,  there  still  remain  in  the  text  seeming 
inexplicables,  cnices  inter  pre  turn,  before  which,  not 
I — 'for  that  implies  nothing,  but  all  confessing  theo- 
logians stand,  even  then  I  do  not  hesitate  a  moment 
to  say  in  the  hearing  of  the  whole  scientific  world, 
that  facing  the  choice  between  leaving  this  question 
unanswered,  and  with  the  simple-minded  people  of 
God  confessing  my  ignorance,  or  with  the  learned 
ethical  brethren  from  scientific  logicalness  rejecting 
the  infallibility  of  Scripture,  I  firmly  choose  the  first 
and  with  my  whole  soul  shrink  back  from  the 
last." 

It  was  a  faith  like  that  that  underlay  the  powerful 
and  prevailing  prayer  that  has  made  possible  the 
history  of  the  world's  great  revivals. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  revival 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     183 

in  Shotts,  Scotland,  in  1630.  People  had  come  from 
every  quarter  and  several  days  had  been  spent  in 
prayer  and  the  evening  before  young  Livingston 
preached  that  memorable  sermon,  instead  of  retiring 
for  rest  they  broke  up  into  praying  bands  and  spent 
the  whole  night  in  agonizing  supplication.  Living- 
ston too  had  prayed  all  the  night  through  and  al- 
though he  so  quailed  at  the  thought  of  himself,  a 
youth,  addressing  so  many  aged  and  experienced 
saints  that  he  v^ould  fain  have  run  away,  he  en- 
gaged in  his  holy  task  and  the  world  knows  the 
result,  how,  while  he  preached,  more  than  five  hun- 
dred cried  out,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  and 
found  peace  in  believing  on  Jesus  Chirst. 

It  was  a  masterpiece  that  Edwards  preached  at 
Enfield,  yet  it  was  not  the  character  of  the  sermon 
but  the  fact  that  it  was  prefaced  by  a  night  of 
agonizing  travail  on  the  part  of  God's  people  that 
has  made  the  occasion  the  memorable  one  that 
it  is.  They  had  become  alarmed  lest  while  God  was 
blessing  other  places  He  should  in  anger  pass  them 
by,  and  so  they  met  and  prayed  all  the  night  through 
agonizing  in  their  deep  concern  for  the  unsaved  of 
their  community. 

The  secret  of  the  wonderful  revivals  that  oc- 
curred so  frequently  in  Mt.  Holyoke  Seminary  was 
never  understood  until  it  became  known  that  Mary 
Lyon,  who  founded  the  institution  on  faith,  had 
preceded  every  one  of  them  by  a  prolonged  season 
of  agonizing,  persevering  intercessory  prayer. 


134.  EVANGELISM 

The  great  revival  of  1857  originated  in  prayer 
and  the  principal  feature  of  its  whole  glorious  prog- 
ress was  prayer.  They  met,  not  to  hear  the  burning 
appeal  of  a  sermon,  but  to  pray  and  to  unitedly 
intercede  with  God  that  He  would  visit  the  people 
with  His  saving  grace. 

This  is  the  history  of  revival.  It  originates  and 
progresses  in  prayer.  The  Church  is  the  bride  of 
Christ  and  the  mother  of  God's  children  and  it 
would  seem  that  no  soul  is  ever  converted  except 
as  some  one  has  gone  through  deep  travail  for  it. 
And  where  in  any  community  God's  people  in  large 
numbers  simultaneously  plead  with  God  in  deep  con- 
cern for  the  lost  there  you  will  hear  that  hundreds 
have  turned  to  Christ. 

You  might  as  well  expect  rain  without  clouds  as 
to  expect  a  revival  without  prayer.  And  if  prayer 
is  such  a  power  and  at  the  same  time  a  privilege 
vouchsafed  to  us  for  the  bringing  of  the  world  to 
Christ  what  an  awful  responsibilit};  is  ours  and  how 
awful  our  guilt  if  we  neglect  it. 

On  of  the  best  means  of  stimulating  and  pro- 
moting prayer  in  connection  with  an  evangelistic 
campaign  is  the  Cottage  Prayer-Meeting;  a  meet- 
ing held  in  some  home  to  which  the  neighbours 
are  invited  and  where  from  thirty  minutes  to  an 
hour  of  time  is  spent  in  earnest  prayer  for  the 
neighbourhood  and  for  the  meetings. 

There  is  no  fast  rule  as  to  the  number  of  such 
meetings.    At  least  one  for  every  500  to  1,000  of 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     135 

the  population  according  to  its  character  is  perhaps 
a  safe  guide  in  view  of  the  limited  number  who  are 
able  or  disposed  to  attend. 

The  best  time  for  the  holding  of  these  meetings 
is  in  the  forenoon  about  9:30  or  10:00  o'clock. 

The  length  of  the  meeting,  30,  40  or  60  minutes, 
must  be  governed  by  the  number  of  other  meetings 
held  throughout  the  day,  but  they  should  always 
begin  and  end  promptly. 

They  should  be  meetings  for  prayer,  and  no  one, 
not  even  the  leader,  should  be  allowed  to  make  any 
extended  talk  whatever. 

This  work  should  be  under  the  immediate  charge 
of  the  Devotional  Committee 


'Another  capital  plan  is  the  Prayer  Circle 

Prayer  Circle  cards  should  be  distributed  at  least 
three  months  before  the  campaign  opens  and  each 
church  should  make  the  most  earnest  effort  through 
its  various  organizations  or  departments  to  enlist  as 
many  of  its  members  in  the  Prayer  Circle  as  pos- 
sible. Each  member  of  such  a  circle  will  choose 
and  make  record  on  their  Prayer  Circle  card  of 
those  friends  and  individuals  for  whom  they  are 
especially  anxious  and  whom  they  shall  make  the 
chief  object  of  prayer  and  endeavour  that  they  may 
be  brought  to  Christ  before  or  during  the  meetings. 
Supplies  of  such  Prayer  Circle  cards  may  be  secured. 
It  is  a  splendid  thing  for  this  Prayer  Circle  to  meet 


136  EVANGELISM 

for  twenty  minutes  after  the  regular  week  night 
prayer  service.  This  way  of  praying  definitely  and 
expecting  definite  results  God  always  honours. 

PREACHING 

The  second  element  in  preparing  for  a  cam- 
paign of  this  kind  is  Preparatory  preaching. 

Perhaps  with  the  pulpit  more  than  any  other  one 
place  the  responsibility  lies  for  getting  properly 
ready  for  an  approaching  series  of  evangelistic  meet- 
ings. A  minister's  people  always  know  just  how 
much  sympathy  he  has  for  a  work  of  this  kind. 
He  does  not  need  to  criticise,  but  simply  to  leave  it 
severely  alone.  But  it  is  a  sad  thing  to  see  a  minister 
at  such  a  time,  when  the  whole  community  is  pre- 
paring itself  for  its  own  spiritual  quickening  and 
for  the  winning  of  multitudes  to  Christ,  utterly  in- 
different to  the  tremendous  issues  of  what  is  about 
to  be  undertaken. 

The  character  of  this  preparatory  preaching  may 
be  readily  surmised. 

First,  there  are  prejudices  to  he  removed.  No_ 
form  of  Christian  work  has  received  such  unjust 
and  uncalled-for  strictures  as  this.  Consequently 
there  are  those  in  the  church  who  are  grossly  preju- 
diced against  the  very  word,  "  evangelist,'*  and 
many  who  are  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  there  is  any 
acceptable  form  of  this  particular  kind  of  Christian 
work;  and  as  a  rule  the  pastor  has  a  r^ither  large 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     137 

job  on  his  hands  in  making  such  Christian  people 
not  only  tolerant  but  enthusiastic  about  it. 

Second,  there  is  the  heart  searching  so  necessary 
in~prep'afati'onfdr''a  time  like  that.  The  heart  must 
be  right.  People  ask  why  it  is  that  the  world  does 
not  come  and  join  the  Church.  Perhaps  it  is  be- 
cause the  Church  has  gone  and  joined  the  world  just 
a  little  bit  too  much.  Let  the  Church  become  right ; 
let  her  become  pure  and  clean  and  stay  so  and  the 
world  I  verily  beheve  will  come  and  batter  down 
her  doors  to  get  on  the  inside. 

Third,  there  is  the  concern  for  the  unsaved. 
Without  this  there  will  be  no  agonizing  prayer  and 
no  heart-earnest  effort  to  help  the  unsaved  on  their 
way  to  God.  And  in  all  this  period  of  preparation 
the  wise  and  interested  pastor  will  know  how  to 
preach.  He  will  know  what  texts  to  choose  and 
what  truths  to  emphasize. 

To  a  certain  extent  this  kind  of  preaching  ought 
to  prevail  throughout  the  entire  year,  but  at  least 
three  months  should  be  devoted  to  it  just  prior  to 
an  evangelistic  campaign. 

PERSONAL   WORK 

The  third  element  in  preparing  for  a  cam- 
paign of  this  kind  is  Personal  work. 

We  read,  "  The  Spirit  and  the  Bride  say  come,'* 
but  we  also  read  in  the  same  place,  "  And  let  him 
that  heareth  say  come."     **One  of  the  two  who 


138  EVANGELISM 

heard  John  speak  was  Andrew.  He  first  findeth 
Tiis  own  brofher^  Simon  and  he  brought  him  to 
Jesus.'*  The  day  following  Jesus  said  unto  Philip, 
"  Follow  me."  Philip  found  Nathaniel  and  said 
unto  him,  "  We  have  found  Jesus  of  Naz^eth." 
And  Nathaniel  said,  "  Can  any  good  thing  come  out 
of  Nazareth?'*     Philip  said,  "Come  and  see." 

I  know  of  one  man  at  the  head  of  a  great  com- 
mercial enterprise  who  over  the  table  at  luncheon 
in  the  hotel  led  another  man  of  equal  standing  in 
the  commercial  world  to  Christ,  and  this  latter  man 
when  I  last  conversed  with  him  had  been  used  of 
God  to  bring  117  others  to  a  saving  knowledge  of 
Jesus  Christ. 

Any  one  who  knows  the  history  of  all  great  re- 
vival movements,  mediaeval  and  especially  modern, 
knows  that  the  most  effective  way  of  winning  people 
for  Christ  is  by  personal  work. 

The  pastor  of  one  of  the  largest  churches  in  this 
land,  where  2,000  new  members  were  received  in 
eight  years  and  thousands  more  converted  in  the 
church  joined  other  churches,  said  the  fact  that 
^his  church  was  in  a  continuous  state  of  revival  was 
due  to  two  things  very  largely :  First,  the  spirit  of 
prayer  that  was  constantly  fostered  throughout  the 
church;  Second,  a  trained  body  of  personal  workers 
who  were  constantly  at  the  work  of  leading  others 
to  Christ  in  the  church  and  out  of  it. 

Notice,  he  said,  "  Trained  workers."  The  ig- 
norance of  God's  people  about  God's  Word  is  la- 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     139 

mentable.  We  need  trained  workers  and  not  ad- 
venturers who  confuse  and  irritate  and  repel. 

To  this  end  a  Personal  Workers'  Training  Class 
should  be  organized  either  in  every  church  or  one 
for  a  number  of  churches  combined.  The  pastor 
or  some  other  competent  person  should  be  the  leader 
of  such  a  class  and  a  regular  course  of  study 
should  be  taken  up  concerning  the  conditions  of  suc- 
cessful personal  work. 

Both  the  theoretical  and  the  practical  side  of  this 
work  should  have  the  most  careful  attention  given 
to  them. 

By  the  theoretical  side  is  meant  the  method,  i.e. 
how  to  select  those  with  whom  the  personal  worker 
shall  deal,  how  to  approach  them  and  the  proper 
Scriptures  to  use.  By  the  practical  side  is  meant 
the  study  of  the  individual  case.  Systematic  effort 
at  soul-winning  should  be  insisted  upon  and  part 
of  the  time  of  each  class  should  be  devoted  to  re- 
ports of  such  effort,  to  counsel  and  to  prayer.  No 
one  needs  to  be  told  how  much  a  preparation  of 
this  kind,  if  it  is  to  any  degree  extensive  and  thor- 
ough, will  mean  toward  the  successful  issue  of  an 
evangelistic  campaign. 

PUBLICITY 

The  fourth  element  in  preparing  for  a  cam- 
paign of  this  kind  is  Publicity. 

In  regard  to  the  question  of  the  legitimacy  of 
advertising  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  call  for 


140  EVANGELISM 

discussion.  You  say,  "  Preach  the  Gospel  and  the 
people  will  come."  That  is  not  true.  Thousands  of 
devoted,  holy  men  of  God  are  doing  that  and  the 
bigger  part  of  the  pews  are  empty.  There  is  no 
place  where  people  ought  so  much  to  crowd  as  in 
the  church  and  the  preacher  who  scorns  any  proper 
method  of  getting  them  there  is  most  assuredly  not 
making  full  proof  of  his  ministry. 

The  importance  of  legitimate  advertising  is  far 
from  being  appreciated  as  it  ought.  Most  minis- 
ters do  not  know  what  advertising  is  really  for.  Is 
it  to  let  people  know  there  is  a  meeting  going  on? 
Not  at  all.  Why  does  the  National  Biscuit  Com- 
pany spend  $600,000  a  year  for  advertising?  To 
let  people  know  it  is  in  the  biscuit  business? 
Not  at  all.  It  is  to  convince  people  that  what  they 
really  need  is  a  biscuit  and  as  a  consequence  of  their 
pohcy  about  100,000,000  people  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  they  need  a  biscuit  and  the 
National  Biscuit  Company  has  grown  rich.  Do 
you  see? 

The  devil  knows  how  to  advertise.  He  comes 
along  with  something  the  natural  man  already  wants 
but  he  paints  the  town  red  to  let  them  know  he  is 
coming.  The  evangelist  comes  along  with  some- 
thing the  natural  man  doesn't  want,  and  yet  thou- 
sands of  ministers  think  that  if  you  put  it  in  the 
newspaper  and  announce  it  from  the  pulpit  it  is 
sufficiently  well  aired. 

So  important  has  this  phase  of  the  Christian  min- 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     141 

istry  been  deemed  that  an  organization  has  been 
formed,  with  Christian  Riesner,  that  prince  of 
church  advertisers,  at  its  head,  the  sole  purpose  of 
which  is  to  study  and  promote  the  best  methods  of 
getting  the  ears  of  the  multitudes  for  the  message 
of  the  Gospel.  Christian  Reisner  and  Charles  Stelzle 
have  written  each  a  book  full  of  valuable  informa- 
tion along  this  line  and  it  would  pay  every  minister 
and  evangelist  to  read  the  same  most  carefully. 

As  to  the  various  phases  of  publicity  we  must 
here  content  ourselves  with  the  mere  mention  of 
some  of  the  more  important  and  telling  methods. 

The  newspaper  is  perhaps  the  first  and  foremost 
agency  to  be  employed.  Among  others  mention 
should  be  made  of  large  posters  in  two  colours  put 
up  in  conspicuous  places;  attractive  banners 
stretched  high  up  across  the  principal  streets; 
streamers  on  street  cars,  jitney  buses,  delivery 
wagons  and  other  vehicles;  A-shaped  boards  on  the 
principal  street  corners;  chalk-writing  on  the  side- 
walk; window  cards  in  the  stores  and  homes  of  the 
city;  hangers  for  the  door  knobs;  tickets  and  an- 
nouncements delivered  with  the  groceries  and  laun- 
dry packages. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  countless  methods 
of  getting  the  work  before  the  mind  of  the  public 
and  as  one  of  the  foremost  agencies  in  preparing 
for  the  same  its  value  cannot  be  overstated. 


142  EVANGELISM 

OPERATION  OF  AN  EVANGELISTIC  CAMPAIGN 

We  now  come  to  the  Campaign  itself  to  study 
for  a  few  moments  its  progress  and  method  of 
operation. 

The  problem  which  is  always  uppermost  In  every 
evangelist's  mind  is  the  one  of  reaching  the  various 
classes  of  people  in  any  community  where  he  may 
be  labouring. 

First.  The  church  people  themselves  must  be 
reached.  Some  of  them  alas,  are  unreachable. 
But  among  the  special  features  for  interesting 
church  people  in  general  the  following  may  be 
mentioned. 

The  Cottage  Prayer-meetings.  During  the  cam- 
paign these  are  usually  held  four  mornings  of  each 
week  usually  for  forty  minutes  and  at  nine  thirty 
o'clock  in  the  morning. 

The  Forward  Step  Card,    (See  opposite  page.) 

Meetings  for  ministers.  These  are  usually  held 
on  Monday  forenoons  and  the  ministers  of  the  sur- 
rounding neighbourhood  are  invited.  A  meeting,  at 
least  one,  for  ministers'  wives  is  also  a  splendid 
thing. 

Meetings  for  church  officers.  The  best  time  to 
hold  such  meetings  is  on  Sunday  evening  for  thirty 
minutes  before  the  public  service  begins.  (The  in- 
terested officers  should  see  that  those  officers  of  their 
own  church  who  are  not  so  interested  are  invited 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     143 


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144!  EVANGELISM 

and  brought  to  this  meeting.)  This  oftentimes  de- 
velops into  a  meeting  of  great  power. 

The  Sunrise  Prayer  meeting.  This  is  held  usually 
on  Sunday  morning  and  proves  a  great  blessing  to 
many. 

Church  Day,  This  is  a  day  somewhere  mid-week 
when  each  minister  meets  his  own  people  and  is 
sometimes  followed  by  a  union  prayer  meeting.  The 
afternoon  of  this  day  is  usually  given  up  to  a 
special  campaign  of  personal  work. 

Church  Night.  This  is  a  night  when  the  various 
churches  gather  in  different  parts  of  the  building 
and  consider  each  one  how  to  interest  their  own  un- 
interested members  and  how  to  reach  the  unsaved 
who,  if  reached,  would  naturally  affiliate  with  their 
particular  church. 

Second.  The  business  people  must  be  reached. 

A  special  Merchants'  Day,  when  perhaps  the 
stores  are  asked  to  close  for  a  couple  of  hours  in 
the  afternoon  for  a  public  service,  is  a  feature  of 
much  worth. 

Noon-day  meetings  in  some  opera  house  or  cen- 
tral building  of  some  kind  have  proven  effective. 

A  Business  Men's  lunch  as  well  as  a  Business 
Women's  lunch  has  great  value. 

A  combination  Social-Bible  and  Personal  Work 
class  for  the  business  women  is  worth  con- 
sidering. 

A  Noon  Christian  business  and  professional  men's 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     145 

meeting  for  confidential  conference  on  personal 
work  for  the  unsaved  men  of  these  classes  is  most 
effective. 

Third.    The  labouring  classes  must  be  reached. 

For  this  purpose  meetings  in  the  factories  should 
be  held  every  day  at  the  noon  hour.  So  important 
is  this  part  of  the  work  that  it  is  often  advisable 
to  have  in  the  evangelistic  party  a  man  especially 
adapted  for  it. 

The  employees  and  the  employers  as  well  of  each 
factory  should  be  encouraged  to  attend  the  meeting 
in  a  delegation  on  any  night  most  convenient  for 
them. 

A'  special  factory  night  for  all  factories  should  be 
held  during  the  meetings  when  seats  will  be  reserved 
for  employees  of  this  kind.  On  one  night  in  Law- 
rence, Mass.,  more  than  5,000  factory  employees  at- 
tended  the  meeting  in  this  way. 

Fourth.    The  young  people  must  be  reached. 

Among  other  ways  the  following  will  prove 
helpful. 

A  Sunday  afternoon  meeting  with  an  age  limit, 
admission  into  which  should  be  made  by  ticket. 

A  meeting  usually  held  some  week-day  afternoon 
immediately  at  tha  close  of  school  for  those  in 
their  teens. 

A  night  when  seats  are  reserved  in  the  public  serv- 
ice for  high-school  students  when  the  building  is 
decorated  with  their  colours. 

Luncheon^  for  high-school  students. 


146  EVANGELISM 

DECISION  CARD 

I  am  not  now  a  member  of  the  Church. 
I  accept  Christ  as  my  personal  Saviour/and 
intend  henceforth  to  lead  a  Christian  life. 

Name | | 

(If  under  12  years,  place  X  in  square) 

Street 

Church  Preferred 

I  am  a  member  of  the  Church  elsewhere. 
It  is  my  purpose  to  unite  with  the  Church 
in  this  city. 

Name 

Street 

Church  Preferred 

I  am  a  member  of  the  Church,  but  wish 
to  reconsecrate  myself  to  a  higher  Chris- 
tian experience,  and  to  make  a  new  start 
in  the  Christian  life. 

Name 

Street 

Church  Preferred 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     147 

Bible  and  Personal  workers'  bands  organized 
both  for  high-school  boys  and  for  high-school  girls. 
These  classes  often  become  permanent  features  of 
the  religious  life  of  the  school.  All  these  things 
serve  in  a  capital  way  to  interest  and  reach  the 
young  people  of  the  community  for  Christ. 

Fifth.  The  children  must  be  reached.  It 
is  advisable  when  possible  to  have  a  special  workers 
for  boys  and  girls.  One  of  the  strongest  evangelists 
of  this  country,  Rev.  E.  P.  Hammond,  devoted  his 
ministry  almost  entirely  to  winning  for  the  Christ 
the  little  folks  and  there  are  thousands  who  have 
risen  up  in  after  years  to  say  they  owed  their  con- 
version to  his  efforts. 

Among  the  features  to  interest  them  the  follow- 
ing may  be  mentioned: 

A  children's  meeting  held  each  afternoon  at  the 
close  of  the  schools. 

A  Sunday  School  rally  in  the  tabernacle  or 
auditorium  where  the  meetings  are  in  progress. 
This  ought  to  be  held  on  some  Sunday  at  the 
regular  time  for  Sunday  School  and  ought 
to  take  the  place  of  the  Sunday  School  for  that 
day. 

Decision  Day  in  the  Sunday  School.  Special  pro- 
grams for  this  service  may  be  secured. 

A  boys*  and  girls'  parade  on  Saturday  afternoon 
ending  with  a  meeting  in  the  auditorium. 

A  Sunbeam  Chorus  is  often  organized  with  good 
effect.     This  interests  both  the  children  and  their 


148  EVANGELISM 

parents.  This  chorus  usually  sings  at  the  large 
meeting  either  on  Monday  or  Saturday  nights. 

Sixth.  The  Rural  communities  must  be 
reached.  Perhaps  there  is  no  better  way  for 
doing  this  than  by  the  Automobile  Preaching  Trip. 
Sometimes  the  preaching  is  omitted  and  announce- 
ments merely  are  made  concerning  the  meetings.  I 
quote  from  a  friend  who  says,  "  We  secure  as  many 
autos  as  possible  for  a  given  day,  preferably  late  in 
the  first  week  of  the  meetings.  These  are  decorated 
with  appropriate  banners,  the  choir  and  a  brass 
band  are  loaded  in  and  we  begin  a  tour  of  the 
town  first;  then  making  a  circle  through  the  country 
take  in  as  many  neighbouring  towns  as  possible  be- 
fore dark,  stopping  long  enough  for  a  selection  from 
the  band,  a  song  by  the  choir  and  a  short  announce- 
ment of  the  meeting  by  one  of  the  pastors.  In 
Rochester,  Ind.,  recently,  a  town  of  less  than  4,000 
people,  we  started  out  with  41  cars  and  253  people, 
making  a  ninety-mile  circle  and  visiting  ten  villages. 
Two  of  these  sent  in  a  delegation  which  filled  75 
cars  a  few  nights  later. 

Some  day  to  be  known  as  ''  Farmers'  Day  "  or 
"Neighbourhood  Day"  or,  possibly  better  still, 
"  Community  Day  "  can  be  set  aside  to  great  ad- 
vantage for  reaching  the  outlying  people.  Perhaps 
no  better  day  than  Saturday  could  be  chosen  for 
this  occasion  and  a  special  program  should  be  pre- 
pared which  will  last  throughout  the  entire  day. 
Villages  and  towns  should  be  encouraged  to  come 


PREPARATION  AND  OPERATION     149 

into  the  city  where  the  meetings  are  being  held,  in 
delegations,  and  seats  should  be  reserved  for  them 
so  that  each  delegation  may  sit  together. 

This  leads  me  to  say  that  one  of  the  very  best 
ways  of  reaching  the  community  in  general,  as  well 
as  special  classes  of  people,  is  by  the  delegation 
method.  Organizations  of  every  kind  and  all  the 
various  bodies  of  men  and  women  should  be  invited 
and  urged  to  attend  the  meeting  in  delegation  as 
the  special  guests  of  the  evening.  This  will  bring 
many  hundreds  who  might  otherwise  never  attend. 
If  the  meeting  proves  interesting  and  helpful,  and 
it  will  if  properly  conducted,  many  of  those  induced 
to  come  in  the  delegations  will  come  back  and  bring 
their  families  with  them  and  so  may  be  reached  for 
Christ.  There  should  be  committees  appointed 
whose  special  business  it  is  to  arrange  for  these 
delegations  both  from  outside  the  community  and 
from  within  it. 

There  are  of  course  other  ways  of  reaching  the 
people.  Time  fails  us  to  make  more  than  mention 
of  Mothers'  Day,  Temperance  Day,  Forgiveness 
Day,  Day  of  Prayer  and  Fasting,  Good-cheer  Night, 
Patriotic  Night,  Converts'  Night,  Old  Folks'  Tea, 
Meetings  for  Men  Only  and  also  for  Women  Only' 
Street  Preaching,  and  other  special  features,  to  all 
of  which  the  wise  and  thoughtful  evangelist  will 
give  careful  attention  if  he  is  bent  on  capturing  the 
community  for  Christ. 

This  after  all  is  the  motive  of  the  whole  propa- 


160  EVANGELISM 

ganda,  and  it  is  in  just  this  that  the  evangelistic  cam- 
paign contrasts  sharply  with  the  public  lecture,  the 
Chautauqua  and  the  concert  course.  Entertainment 
may  figure  largely  as  the  major  reason  for  these 
others,  but  no  matter  how  large  the  crowds  nor  how 
much  of  entertainment  may  have  been  received  in 
an  evangelistic  campaign,  if  this  motive,  which  so 
specially  belongs  to  it,  is  not  most  jealously  guarded 
throughout  every  proceeding  it  must  acknowledge 
itself  of  all  failures  to  be  the  most  disappointing  and 
dismal. 


VII 
INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM 

I.  Its  Place  and  Value. 

1.  Its  importance  cannot  be  overestimated. 

2.  Possibility  connected  with  it. 

3.  Ought  to  be  given  scientific,  persistent  and  prayer- 

ful  study. 

4.  The  revival  effort  superficial  and  inadequate  with- 

out it. 

II.  Personal  Prerequisites. 

I.  A  Christian  experience  and  surrender.  2.  A  prayer- 
ful spirit.  3.  The  right  motive.  4.  Courage. 
5.  Tact.    6.  Perseverance. 

III.  Notable  examples  of  soul-winners. 

1.  Jesus.     Andrew. 

2.  Uncle  John  Vassar,  Trumbull,  Moody,  et  al. 

IV.  Enlistment. 

1.  Pastor  must  enlist.    Not  only  preach  it  but  prac- 

tise it. 

2.  Entire  membership  to  be  enlisted.    Not  easy  to  do. 

(a)  Eyes  must  be  opened  to  see  real  definition 

and  significance  of  the  Christian  life. 

(b)  Must  be  made  to  see  the  nobility  of  service. 

(c)  Must  be   made   to   see   responsibility   for 

others. 

(d)  Must  be  made  to  see   facility  of   work. 

V.    Equipment — Training. 

1.  Why  needed. 

(a)  Work  delicate  and  far-reaching. 

2.  The  Workers'   Training  Class. 

(a)  Textbooks. 

(b)  How  to  select  your  man. 

(c)  How  to  approach  your  man. 

VI.    Organized  action. 

1.  General    failure   on   the   part  of  the   ministry  to 

outline  definite  program  of  work  for  members. 

2.  Methods. 

(a)  The  Invitation  Method. 

(b)  The  Group  Method. 

(c)  The  Two-by-Two  Method. 

(d)  Simultaneous     Campaign    of     Individual 

Evangelism. 


VII 
INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM 

HENRY  WARD  BEECHER  said,  "The 
longer  I  live  the  more  confidence  I  have  in 
those  sermons  preached  where  one  man  is 
the  minister  and  one  man  is  the  congregation." 

This,  by  the  way,  is  the  kind  of  ministry  to 
which  every  follower  of  Christ  is  called,  a  min- 
istry in  which  he  can  serve  with  a  surprising  ac- 
ceptability and  a  ministry  in  which  he  must  serve 
if  the  Church  is  ever  to  fulfil  the  mission  which  be- 
came hers  when  Christ  first  set  her  in  the  world 
and  told  her  to  go  and  make  disciples  of  all  the 
people  in  it. 

Not  every  Christian  can  be  a  great  preacher  and 
preach  to  a  great  congregation,  but  every  Chris- 
tian can  become  a  personal  worker,  an  individual 
evangelist,  and  perform  a  mighty  ministry  for 
Christ  in  a  personal  way  if  indeed  his  heart  is 
set  on  so  doing. 

It  is  said  of  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  that  when  he 
was  carrying  on  his  great  work  in  Boston  and  con- 
verts in  large  numbers  were  coming  into  the  church 
he  was  asked  by  a  brother  in  the  ministry  how 
it  was  that  he  was  able  to  do  so  much.    He  replied, 

153 


154  EVANGELISM 

"Oh,  it  is  not  I  that  do  it;  it  is  my  church.  I 
preach  on  the  Sabbath  as  hard  as  I  can  and  then 
I  have  four  hundred  church  members  who  go  out 
and  preach  every  day  in  the  week.  They  are  preach- 
ing all  the  time,  and  that  is  the  way  with  God's 
blessing  that  we  get  along  so  well." 

If  there  is  any  one  need  greater  than  another  in 
the  Church  today  it  is  a  practice  of  just  that  kind — 
the  practice  of  the  individual  winning  others  to 
Jesus  Christ.  And  it  is  just  in  the  lack  of  this 
that  we  discover  the  self-evident  secret  of  our  past 
failure  to  extend  the  Kingdom  of  Christ  numeri- 
cally in  any  degree  commensurate  with  what  we 
must  acknowledge  God  could  have  reasonably  ex- 
pected of  us. 

Public  evangelism  operates  by  spurts.  This  is 
the  genius  of  its  method.  But  while  we  need  it 
none  the  less,  it  is  the  spirit  of  evangelism  rather 
than  the  spurt  we  need  the  more.  Splendid  as  the 
results  of  public  evangelism  have  been,  efficient  as 
such  a  method  of  ministry  is,  if  is  utterly  impotent 
to  accomplish  the  thought  in  God's  mind  when  He 
ordained  evangelism  as  the  means  of  bringing  the 
world  to  its  knees  in  the  presence  of  His  Son. 

Normal  evangelism  is  individual.  It  was  so  in 
the  New  Testament  day.  It  is  so  today.  The 
numerical  status  of  the  church  in  our  time  fur- 
nishes no  conclusive  evidence  that  past  methods  will 
ever  bring  the  world  to  Christ.  The  fact  is,  we  are 
not  discipling  this  land  at  a  rate  sufficiently  rapid 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  155 

to  guarantee  a  Christian  nation  to  future  genera- 
tions. 

We  do  not  forget  that  there  is  a  qualitative  as- 
pect to  the  work  the  church  is  expected  to  do,  but 
we  must  not  overlook  the  fact  that  if  the  church 
shall  ever  cease  to  grow  numerically,  it  will  give 
evidence,  by  that  very  fact,  of  having  lost  the  one 
thing  which  gives  quality  to  its  life  and  without 
which  its  spirit  will  shrivel  and  die.  Some  one 
has  said  that  if  a  church  is  existing  only  by  letters 
of  transfer,  it  is  time  the  doors  were  closed  and 
**  Ichabod,  the  glory  of  the  Lord  has  departed," 
was  inscribed  across  them.  "  Let  the  Church  cease 
to  evangelize  and  it  will  be  smitten  with  death." 
This  is  not  an  hallucination  of  short-sighted  pessi- 
mism. It  is  a  calm  deduction  from  facts  and  fig- 
ures in  the  candid  recognition  of  which  lies  one 
of  the  greatest  hopes  of  amelioration. 

Let  us  fairly  face  the  situation  and  see  if  the 
smug  self-satisfaction  which  has  been  our  curse  until 
now  will  not  give  way  to  a  new,  mighty  and  endur- 
ing Pentecost  which  will  give  to  Jesus  Christ  His 
rightful  place  in  the  life  of  this  nation  and  of  the 
world. 

What  shall  we  say  when  the  25,000,000  of  Pro- 
testant church  members  made  a  net  loss  in  1919  of 
more  than  100,000  souls  while  our  population  in- 
creased more  than  a  milHon?  What  shall  we  say 
when  all  our  Protestant  churches  are  practically  at 
a  standstill,  even  though  th^  WPrid  tragedjr  may  in 


166  EVANGELISM 

large  measure  account  for  this  abnormal  condition. 
This  or  very  little  better  has  been  the  story  for  the 
past  two  decades  and  more.  It  is  this  that  caused 
me  to  say  that  our  past  methods  seem  sadly  insuffi- 
cient. But  it  does  look  as  though  the  accomplish- 
ment of  the  desired  result  would  be  a  compara- 
tively easy  thing  if  every  adherent  to  the  faith  of 
Christ  would  feel  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  bring- 
ing into  the  Kingdom  the  one  who  walks  by  his 
side  along  the  way. 

Take  a  church  of  250  members  and  let  us  sup- 
pose that  200  of  them  do  nothing,  but  that  the 
other  fifty  make  each  one  effort  a  week  to  bring 
some  one  to  Christ,  and  let  us  suppose  that  nine 
out  of  every  ten  efforts  thus  made  completely  fail,  do 
you  know  that  in  one  year  there  would  be  added 
to  that  church  260  souls  and  her  membership  more 
than  doubled. 

Do  you  know  that  if  the  Methodist  ministers 
of  this  land  would  bring  each  one,  just  one,  soul 
per  month  to  Christ  460,000  souls  would  be  added 
to  the  church  of  Christ  in  just  one  year.  If  the 
Baptist  ministers  would  do  the  same  thing  there 
would  be  426,000  more,  and  if  all  the  Protestant 
ministers  performed  this  small  service  for  Christ 
the  membership  of  our  churches  would  have  been 
increased  in  a  single  year  to  the  magnificent  number 
of  1,792,644  souls. 

Do  you  know  that  we  could  save  every  individual 
in  this  land  for  Christ  in  two  years'  time  if  each 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  167 

Christian  would  win  but  one  a  year?  Oh,  what  a 
mighty  change  would  take  place  and  what  a  glor- 
ious age  it  would  be  if  every  Christian  would  only 
"  do  his  bit "  and  show  to  the  world  that  he  really 
believes  in  the  religion  which  he  professes  to  have 
saved  his  own  soul.  We  would  find  the  tides  rising 
higher  and  higher  until  the  church  would  become 
*'  bright  as  the  sun,  fair  as  the  moon  and  as  terrible 
as  an  army  with  banners,"  and  we  would  cease  to 
wonder  why  the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  His 
Christ  did  not  hasten  on  to  its  glorious  consumma- 
tion. 

May  the  Spirit  of  the  mighty  God  stir  us  to  a 
sense  of  our  responsibility,  and  touching  us  anew 
with  the  enduement  of  His  own  mighty  power,  send 
us  out  to  the  task  which  the  church  must  either 
accomplish  or  leave  to  God's  unfailing  sufficiency 
to  compass  in  some  other  way. 

The  importance  of  individual  evangelism,  there- 
fore, cannot  be  too  strongly  stressed,  and  it  ought 
to  be  given  prayerful,  persistent  and  scientific  study. 
Any  revival  effort  will  prove  to  be  superficial  and 
inadequate  without  it.  Says  Dr.  Lyon,  "  I  have 
heard  most  powerful  sermons  that  seemed  abso- 
lutely barren  of  results,  but  never  have  I  seen  earn- 
est, faithful  endeavour  on  the  part  of  consecrated 
personal  workers  night  after  night,  no  matter  how 
ordinary  the  sermon,  but  that  most  gratifying  re- 
sults followed."  And  what  has  been  his  experience 
has  been  the  experience  of  every  evangelist  whose 


158  EVANGELISM 

work  has  been  at  all  successful.  And  the  same 
thing  so  far  as  soul- winning  is  concerned  is  true 
of  the  pastor  and  his  church. 

PERSONAL   PREREQUISITES 

Now  if  all  this  is  true  it  will  pay  us  to  study- 
something  of  the  personal  prerequisites  of  the  suc- 
cessful soul-winner,  the  Christian  who  may  be  called 
with  a  very  certain  propriety  the  individual  evan- 
gelist.. 

The  first  of  the  personal  prerequisites  for  suc- 
cessful soul-winning  is  a  Christian  experience  and 
a  personal  surrender  to  Jesv^s  Christ.  A  man  to  do 
this  kind  of  work  must,  of  course,  be  right  in  his 
own  heart.    The  life  must  be  radiant  with  victory. 

One  reason  why  Charles  Dickens  never  became 
a  spiritualist  was  because  he  once  attended  a  seance 
and  asked  the  medium  to  call  up  his  friend,  Alex- 
ander Murray,  a  man  who  was  a  great  scholar  and 
highly  intelligent.  When  the  supposed  spirit  came 
Dickens  asked  him  if  he  were  really  Alexander 
Murray  and  the  spirit  replied,  "  I  are."  "  You  are 
a  liar,"  said  Dickens,  "  because  if  you  were  Alex- 
ander Murray  you  would  use  good  grammar." 
People  have  no  use  for  a  miserable  old  sham. 

If  what  a  man  is  speaks  so  loud  people  can't  hear 
what  he  says,  then  he  had  better  not  touch  this 
work  at  all  with  his  unholy  hands.  You  might  as 
well  expect  hell  to  rise  up  and  sing  the  doxology 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  159 

as  to  expect  people  to  have  any  confidence  in  you 
if  they  know  you  are  inconsistent  in  your  own 
life.  Anyhow,  the  Holy  Spirit  refuses  to  partner- 
ship with  the  man  whose  heart  is  not  right  in  the 
sight  of  God. 

The  second  prerequisite  is  a  prayerful  spirit. 
Soul-winning  is  not  an  altogether  easy  thing  to  do 
and  the  one  who  thinks  himself  quite  self-sufficient 
for  a  task  like  this  is  the  one  who  is  most  likely 
to  fail.  Think  of  the  mighty  issue  involved,  of 
how  big  with  eternity  the  undertaking  is  to  be,  and 
of  the  wisdom  and  unusual  power  needed  and  of 
the  work  that  God's  Spirit  must  do  in  convicting 
and  quickening  that  unregenerate  soul  and  how 
could  one  ever  think  of  going  to  such  a  task  except 
as  he  goes  from  his  knees. 

The  third  prerequisite  is  to  have  the  right  mo- 
tive. Sometimes  people  will  rise  in  a  meeting  and 
say,  "  Pray  for  me  that  I  may  be  used."  But  the 
desire  to  be  used  may  be  an  accursed  ambition. 
Why  should  I  desire  to  be  used  except  it  be  for 
the  glory  of  God?  But  sometimes,  alas,  the  tap 
root  of  a  prayer  like  that  is  found  to  consist  in  a 
selfish  desire  for  one's  own  praise  and  notoriety; 
what  some  one  has  called  a  "  pious  egotism,"  to  be 
known  as  a  great  worker  and  gifted  in  winning 
others. 

But  men  have  never  been  used  mightily  for  God 
unless  they  have  had  a  passion  for  souls  that  brought 
to  them  utter  self -forget  fulness  in  their  abandon- 


160  EVANGELISM 

ment  to  the  holy  task  of  winning  these  souls  for 
Christ.  This  is  what  caused  John  Knox  to  cry, 
"O  God,  give  me  Scotland,  or  I  die."  This  is 
the  thing  that  burned  in  the  soul  of  Moses,  when 
pleading  for  Israel,  he  said,  "  O  God,  if  Thou 
wilt  forgive ,"  and  that  sentence  was  never  fin- 
ished. If  you  will  look  in  your  Bible  you  will  find 
a  dash  there.  The  thought  that  God  might  not  for- 
give was  more  than  he  could  bear.  And  then  he 
brings  himself  up  once  more  and  cries,  "  But  if 
not,  I  pray  Thee  blot  me  out  of  the  book  which 
Thou  hast  written."  Young  gentlemen,  it  is  not 
ability  we  need;  it  is  the  right  motive,  and  God 
will  make  completely  over  again,  if  necessary,  that 
man  who  is  willing  and  wanting  to  win  souls  for 
Christ. 

The  fourth  prerequisite  for  successful  soul-win- 
ning is  courage.  We  finished  saying  but  a  moment 
ago  that  this  is  not  an  altogether  easy  work  to  do. 
There  will  be  times  even  for  an  experienced  worker 
when  he  would  give  almost  anything  he  has  rather 
than  ring  the  door  bell  at  some  home  on  a  mission 
like  this  or  enter  the  business  man's  ofifice  and  look- 
ing him  squarely  in  the  face  tell  him  of  his  personal 
relation  to  Jesus  Christ. 

I  one  time  heard  Bishop  Hughes  say,  "  If  a  man 
is  out  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  looking  for  a  task 
that  will  lay  upon  his  life  an  immense  pressure,  let 
him  begin  to  be  an  everyday  evangelist,  a  private 
talker  with  men  regarding  the  things  of  God,  and 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  161 

he  will  find  the  very  largest  task,  and  in  many  cases 
the  severest  task,  he  has  ever  undertaken." 

Mr.  Kimball  has  told  us  how  he  hesitated  out- 
side that  shoe  store  in  Boston  when  every  voice 
of  opportunity  and  every  sense  of  duty  said,  "  Go 
in  and  speak  to  that  young  shoe  clerk  behind  the 
counter."  And  what  if  he  had  not  done  it!  V^e 
tremble  to  think  that  we  might  have  had  no  Moody. 
One  thing  that  makes  it  hard  is  the  fear  of  being 
rebuffed.  But  we  magnify  this  danger.  For  every 
one  who  does  so  receive  you,  999  will  thank  you 
for  coming. 

The  fifth  prerequisite  is  Tact.  Tact,  in  this  con- 
nection, means  sanctified  common  sense.  It's  no 
easy  art  to  say  the  right  word  at  the  right  time, 
in  the  right  way  and  to  the  right  man.  A  young 
fellow  approached  a  lawyer  in  one  of  Lcn  Brough- 
ton's  meetings  and  said,  "  Do  you  want  to  go  to 
heaven?  "  The  lawyer  said,  "  I  don't  know  that  I 
do."  The  young  fellow  said,  "Well  then,  go  to 
hell,"  and  passed  on.  This  worker  was  to  be  ex- 
cused because  he  was  only  half-witted.  The  strange 
thing,  however,  and  the  fine  thing  about  it  was  that 
that  lawyer  called  on  Len  Broughton  the  next  morn- 
ing, after  a  miserable  night,  all  broken  up,  and  told 
him  what  had  happened  and  said  he  wanted  to  be  a 
'Christian. 

Now  if  a  half-witted  man  could  do  that  well, 
there  is  little  excuse  for  most  of  us  not  making 
at  least  an  effort,  although  the  young  gentleman's 


162  EVANGELISM 

method  is  recommended  with  considerable  reserve. 

Sometimes  a  man's  zeal  runs  away  with  him,  as 
was  much  the  case  with  the  barber  who  desired 
to  impress  upon  his  customer,  who  had  just  reclined 
in  the  chair,  the  claims  of  eternity,  and  he  com- 
menced by  saying,  as  he  vigorously  stropped  his 
razor,  *'  Prepare  to  meet  thy  God/' 

It  is  not  always  best  to  bluntly  tell  a  man  that 
you  want  him  to  come  to  Jesus.  How  rich  and 
rare  was  the  tact  of  Jesus  Himself  in  this  matter. 
When  He  talked  with  Nicodemus  He  went  straight 
to  the  point  because  Nicodemus  had  come  to  see 
Him  and  Jesus  knev/  His  man.  But  when  He  talked 
to  Zacchaeus,  He  said,  "  Come  on  down,  Zacchaeus; 
today  I  must  abide  at  thy  house."  That  is  the 
way  He  started  and  by  the  result  we  know  how 
He  proceeded  and  ended. 

The  sixth  personal  prerequisite  for  successful 
soul-ivinning  is  persevercmce.  Perseverance  is  pa- 
tience on  the  job.  It  means  keeping  everlastingly 
at  it  and  helping  God  to  answer  your  prayer. 


Unanswered  yet?    Nay,  do  not  say  Ungranted^ 
Perhaps  your  part  is  not  yet  wholly  done. 

The  work  began  when  first  your  prayer  was  uttered : 
And  God  will  finish  what  He  hath  begun." 


A  personal  worker  once  said,  "  I'm  about  dis- 
couraged; I've  tried  for  a  long  time  to  win  my 
friend  for  Christ  and  I  can't  stir  him." 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  163 

"How  long  have  you  worked  with  him?''  some 
one  said. 

"About  two  weeks." 

"  And  how  long  after  you  were  first  spoken  to  was 
it  before  you  became  a  Christian?" 

"  Well,  it  must  have  been  about  five  years." 

"  Then,"  said  the  other,  "  youVe  got  four  years, 
eleven  months  and  two  weeks  in  which  to  stick 
to  your  friend  before  he  has  as  good  a  chance  as 
you  had." 

NOTABLE   EXAMPLES   OF   SOUL-WINNERS. 

One  of  the  greatest  sources  of  inspiration  for  a 
ministry  of  this  kind — a;  ministry  of  individual 
evangelism,  is  to  be  found  in  the  notable  examples 
of  successful  soul-winners  with  which  the  history  of 
Christian  experience  abounds. 

Christ  Himself  showed  His  preference  for  this 
method  of  evangelism.  Although  He  preached  to 
the  multitude,  He  was  ever  found  turning  aside  to 
deal  with  the  individual.  I  find  no  record  of  a  dis- 
tinct, stirring  revival  as  we  understand  that  word 
in  all  the  public  ministry  of  Jesus,  but  He  made 
the  hearts  of  men  "burn  within  them"  as  He 
talked  with  them  on  the  roadway;  He  stopped  at 
the  well-side  to  deal  with  a  fallen  woman,  and 
went  here  and  there  preaching  to  congregations 
often  composed  of  a  single  individual. 

We  have  already  recited  the  experience  of  An- 
drew.    The  story  of  Philip  is  well  known;  how 


164*  EVANGELISM 

he  left  the  crowd;  how  the  whisper  of  God's  Spirit 
turned  him  away  from  the  great  revival  in  Samaria 
and  made  him  an  evangelist  to  a  solitary  stranger 
out  on  a  desert  road. 

If  you  have  never  read  the  life-story  of  Uncle 
John  Vassar,  you  must  not  fail  to  do  it.  It  will 
fill  you  with  a  keen  humiliation  and  fire  you  with 
a  mighty  inspiration.  He  was  consumed  with  a 
mighty  passion  and  controlled  by  an  irresistible  im- 
pulse. He  had  to  win  souls  for  Christ.  He  would 
call  on  a  pastor  and  say,  "  Let's  go  out  and  see 
if  there  are  any  lost  souls  in  your  parish."  He 
passes  a  blacksmith's  shop  and  simply  must  go  in, 
and  the  sound  of  a  ringing  anvil  is  changed  into 
the  cry  of  a  penitent  sinner.  He  climbs  the  fence 
and  stops  a  man  at  his  plough.  He  becomes  a  col- 
porteur in  the  Civil  War  and  when  captured  by 
the  Confederates  he  so  pleads  with  the  officers  to 
surrender  to  Jesus  Christ  that,  convinced  of  his 
sincerity  and  innocence,  they  let  him  go  because 
the  Major  told  the  Colonel  if  he  didn't  he  would 
"  have  a  prayer  meeting  on  his  hands  all  the  way 
to  Richmond."  When  a  woman  shut  the  front  door 
in  his  face  he  sat  down  on  the  doorstep  and  sang, 

"  But  drops  of  grief  can  ne'er  repay, 
The  debt  of  love  I  owe; 
Here,  Lord,  I  give  myself  away, 
'Tis  all  that  I  can  do." 

and  when  the  woman  a  little  later  came  to  Christ 
she  said,  "  It  was  those  drops  of  grief." 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  165 

And  then  you  should  not  fail  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  experience  of  Henry  Clay  Trum- 
bull. Perhaps  no  man  has  more  mightily  been 
used  of  God  in  individual  evangelism  than  he. 
Read  especially  the  chapter  entitled,  "  A  Life  Re- 
solve," in  his  book,  "  Individual  Work  for  Individ- 
uals." His  was  a  busy  life,  but  he  led  uncounted 
hundreds  to  Jesus  Christ  one  by  one. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  continue  at  this  point, 
but  we  must  content  ourselves  with  the  mere  men- 
tion of  the  names  of  Finney  and  Moody  and  Tor- 
rey  and  Sayford  and  McBurney,  and  a  host  of  other 
apostles  of  soul-winning  whose  success  in  this  holy 
ministry  certainly  presents  us  with  a  rich  picture 
of  what  the  whole  church  could  do  if  we  would 
but  individually  set  ourselves  to  the  task  to  which 
every  member  has  been  definitely  called. 

There  are,  therefore,  three  words  that  need  em- 
phasis just  here.  They  are  Enlistment,  Equipment 
and  Action. 

ENLISTMENT 

First — The  pastor  and  the  evangelist  must  enlist 
themselves.  They  must  not  only  preach  this  thing, 
but  practise  it.  It  is  one  thing  to  stand  up  in  the 
pulpit  and  urge  the  people  to  it.  It  is  another  thing 
to  come  down  out  of  the  pulpit  and  meet  the  in- 
dividual soul  face  to  face  in  an  effort  to  do  it 
yourself. 

I  wonder  how  far  from  the  truth  we  would  be 


166  EVANGELISM 

if  we  were  to  say  that  the  ministers  themselves  are 
not  winning  souls  to  Christ  ?  If,  as  has  already  been 
stated,  every  Protestant  preacher  in  the  United 
States  had  won  for  Christ  only  one  soul  a  month  last 
year  there  would  have  been  exactly  1,792,644  mem- 
bers added  to  our  churches,  whereas  we  had  to 
content  ourselves,  as  noted  a  while  ago,  with  the 
humiliatingly  small  number  of  about  600,000. 

It  is  said  that  a  professed  infidel  once  said  to 
Rev.  D.  O.  Philip  of  Scotland,  "  Why,  sir,  did  I 
believe  as  you  profess  to,  and  did  I  act  as  you  act 
I  should  feel  ashamed.  You  profess  to  beheve  that 
the  world  is  lost  and  is  going  to  final  perdition  and 
that  you  have  a  remedy  that  can  save  it.  Why  do 
you  not  go  forth  and  plead  with  your  perishing 
fellowmen  with  all  the  earnestness  such  a  case  de- 
mands? If  your  creed  were  mine  I  could  not  rest 
until  I  had  warned  of  their  condition  and  entreated 
them  to  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come."  It  may  be 
that  this  was  prompted  only  because  of  his  own 
hostility  to  the  Gospel  and  as  an  excuse  for  his  own 
infidelity,  but  this  does  not  do  away  with  the  fact 
that  it  is  because  of  our  own  indifference  and  un- 
concern about  this  matter  that  unbelievers  are  apt 
to  be  confirmed  in  their  unbelief  and  impenitent 
condition. 

Then  the  membership  of  the  church  must  he  en- 
listed. I  know  this  is  a  hard  thing  to  do.  If  you 
have  ever  seen  a  boy  trying  to  drag  a  cat  back- 
wards by  the  tail  across  the  carpet  you  will  know 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  167 

something  of  the  difficulty  you  will  experience  in 
getting  some  members  to  do  any  church  work  at 
all.  They  like  to  live  in  the  twenty-third  Psalm, 
where  it  says,  "  Lord,  make  me  to  lie  down."  They 
wear  out  a  dozen  pair  of  holdbacks  to  one  pair  of 
tugs. 

It  would  be  mightily  worth  while  and  no  doubt 
a  bit  surprising  to  carefully  diagnose  the  situation 
in  any  church  with  a  view  to  finding  out  just  why 
the  members  are  so  indifferent  to  this  all-important 
duty.  And  until  the  pastor  has  made  at  least  some 
real  serious  effort  along  this  line  he  cannot  escape 
a  certain  amount  of  self-rebuke  if  he  is  at  all  alive 
to  the  purpose  for  which  God  made  him  an  over- 
seer and  shepherd  of  the  flock.  There  are  some 
things  he  can  do. 

In  the  first  place,  he  can  remove  the  misconcep- 
tion which  so  many  have  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
Christian  life.  A  man  must  be  given  to  see  that 
seeking  for  heaven  solely  for  the  purpose  of  saving 
his  own  soul  is  to  be  possessed  of  a  selfishness  which 
by  its  very  nature  must  forever  exclude  him.  The 
average  church  member  has  failed  to  grasp  the 
true  meaning  of  the  Christian  life,  and  this  fact 
consequently  carries  with  it  a  divine  summons  to 
the  ministry  to  continually  and  emphatically  stress 
the  sacrifice  of  self  as  the  pathway  to  character, 
and  service  as  the  purpose  of  redemption  and  in 
the  ultimate  as  the  only  evidence  of  it. 

It  appears  that  to  the  great  majority  of  church 


168  EVANGELISM 

members  the  divine  invitation  seems  to  say,  "  Come 
and  be  saved."  And  they  are  quite  content  to 
pilgrimage  their  way  with  complaisant  soul  through 
this  dreary  waste  of  mundane  existence  singing 
songs  about  their  heavenly  inheritance.  But  they 
have  misunderstood  the  invitation.  It  does  not 
say,  *'  Come  and  be  saved,"  except  as  it  says,  "  Come 
and  be  a  saviour." 

Examples  of  noble  Christ-like  followers  of  the 
cross  have  not  been  wanting.  But  for  the  multi- 
tude the  seeking  of  God  seems  to  be  for  the  seek- 
ing of  self  through  Him.  And  if  Christianity  is  to 
become  the  virile,  self -propagating,  world-conquer- 
ing force  its  Author  meant  it  to  be,  it  becomes  a 
matter  of  great  necessity  that  the  great  majority 
of  its  adherents  evidence  in  their  lives  something 
more  of  that  spirit  which  made  possible  its  estab- 
lishment in  the  first  place,  when  the  Son  of  God 
in  self -forgetful  abasement  showed  to  the  world 
the  one  and  only  path  which  leads  to  the  goal  of 
its  own  redemption.  More  and  more  the  ministry 
must  hold  forth  and  emphasize  this  ideal,  and  this 
one  and  only  true  concept  of  the  Christian  religion. 

Then  the  preacher  must  help  the  Christian  to  see 
the  nobility  of  a  life  of  service  and  sacrifice  as  com- 
pared with  a  continual  seeking  for  one's  own  self- 
interest.  All  that  is  noble  and  all  that  is  useful  and 
all  that  is  good  in  this  world  has  come  by  the  same 
road  over  which  the  Son  of  God  travelled  when 
for  our  sakes  He  became  poor,  though  He  was  rich 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  169 

exceedingly,  that  we,  through  His  poverty,  might 
become  rich. 

The  preacher  niKst  also  help  them  to  see  and 
understand  their  responsibility  for  the  salvation  of 
another  man's  soul.  He  ought  under  the  power  of 
the  Spirit  to  give  his  people  no  rest  from  the  burn- 
ing words  of  Isaiah,  "  So  thou,  O  son  of  man,  I  have 
set  thee  a  watchman  unto  the  house  of  Israel. 
When  I  say  to  the  wicked,  '  Oh,  wicked  man,  thou 
shalt  surely  die,'  if  thou  dost  not  speak  to  warn  the 
wicked  of  his  way,  that  wicked  man  shall  die  in  his 
iniquity,  but  his  blood  will  I  require  at  thy  hand." 

Oh,  if  only  in  some  way  God  could  help  the 
Christian  to  realize  that  he  is  his  brother's  keeper 
and  so  save  us  from  the  crushing  condemnation  of 
that  hour  when  God  shall  be  compelled  to  put  a 
question  to  a  good  many  of  us  that  shall  make  us 
ashamed  to  look  into  His  face. 

Then  the  preacher  must  make  the  Christian  see 
how  easy  this  kind  of  zvork  really  is.  I  do  not 
mean  easy  to  undertake.  It  is  not.  God  forbid 
that  it  ever  should  be.  "  For  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury," said  a  prominent  Christian  worker,  "  as  I 
have  had  opportunity  day  by  day,  I  can  say  that 
I  have  spoken  with  thousands  and  thousands  on 
the  subject  of  their  spiritual  welfare.  Yet  so  far 
as  becoming  accustomed  to  this  matter,  so  that  I 
can  take  hold  of  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  I  find  it 
as  difficult  to  speak  about  it  at  the  end  of  these 
years  as  at  the  beginning." 


170  EVANGELISM 

What  I  mean  is  that  success  in  doing  it  is  not 
nearly  so  difficult  to  achieve  as  most  people  im- 
agine. George  was  afraid  that  Tom  would  resent 
it  if  he  tried  to  lead  him  to  Christ.  But  the  sense 
of  condemnation  because  of  his  long  neglected  duty 
drove  him  to  it,  and  one  day  he  said,  "  Tom,  I 
wish  you  were  a  Christian."  Tom  said,  "  George, 
I  have  been  wondering  for  the  past  three  years 
why  you  haven't  spoken  to  me  about  my  soul." 

The  letter  that  led  Henry  Clay  Trumbull  to 
Christ  contained  this  sentence :  "I  am  trying  to 
acquit  myself  of  a  duty  too  long  neglected,  but  do 
not  think  it  is  an  easy  one.  It  is  one  I  could  not 
avoid  and  although  I  have  delayed  it,  I  determined 
to  delay  it  no  longer."  And  said  Mr.  Trumbull, 
"  Before  I  had  read  the  last  of  this  letter  I  was 
on  my  knees  asking  forgiveness  of  God  and  com- 
mitting myself  to  a  long  slighted  Saviour." 

EQUIPMENT 

The  second  word  is  Equipment.  The  individual 
evangelist  needs  training,  and  this  too  the  pastor 
can  see  that  he  has.  While  it  is  true  that  the  weak- 
est can  be  used  of  God  in  this  most  important  of 
all  work,  it  is  also  true  that  the  one  willing  to  do 
it  can  do  it  all  the  better  if  he  has  just  that  train- 
ing which  prepares  him  to  do  it  in  the  best  possible 
way. 

Margaret  Slattery  tells  us  of  a  young  girl  brought 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  171 

in  from  a  swimming  accident  apparently  dead,  and 
she  said,  "  We  the  helpless,  useless  crowd  stood 
there.  We  could  do  nothing.  We  knew  neither 
what  nor  how.  Suddenly  the  crowd  parted  at  the 
command  of  a  young  woman  who  had  been  rushed 
to  the  scene  in  an  automobile.  She  was  a  trained 
nurse.  Calm,  quiet,  determined,  she  knew  just  what 
to  do  and  did  it.  In  twenty  minutes  the  physician 
came  and  in  a  few  moments  the  girl  breathed  once, 
then  again  and  again,  and  once  more  she  lived. 
The  physician  shook  the  nurse's  hand  and  said, 
*  You  saved  her.'  "  And  said  Miss  Slattery,  "  I 
could  not  get  over  the  marvel  of  it  as  a  few  days 
later  I  saw  that  girl  alive,  walking  about,  restored 
to  all  who  loved  her  because  some  one  *  knew  how.'  " 
And  she  said  that  as  she  thought  of  this  friend  and 
that  one  out  of  Christ  and  of  this  young  man  and 
that  one  who  used  to  be  in  Sunday  School,  but 
now  stood  on  the  street  smoking  cigarettes,  she 
determined  to  make  an  earnest  effort  to  "  know 
how.'* 

It  is  important  to  know  how.  The  work  of 
bringing  men  to  Christ  is  so  delicate  and  so  far- 
reaching  in  its  results  that  the  importance  of  the 
Personal  Workers'  Training  Class  it  is  impossible 
to  overstate.  We  strongly  recommend  such  an  or- 
ganization for  every  church  in  the  land.  If  the 
/hope  of  winning  the  world  to  Christ  lies  in  in- 
dividual evangelism,  and  it  does,  then  it  becomes 
evident  th^t  such  a  training  class  would  not  only 


172  EVANGELISM 

furnish  the  much-needed  equipment  for  the  doing 
of  this  work  wisely  and  with  effect,  but  it  would 
prove  as  well  a  mighty  incentive  to  the  thing  of 
the  work  itself. 

Let  any  group  of  God's  people  who  honestly 
desire  to  do  His  will  give  any  degree  of  prayerful 
consideration  to  the  best  methods  and  means  for 
this  most  important  of  all  forms  of  Christian  ser- 
vice, studiously  contemplating  the  fact  of  their 
brother's  lost  condition,  their  obligation  to  him  and 
their  responsibility  to  God  for  him,  and  that  they 
could  then  remain  indifferent  and  inactive  is  well- 
nigh  unthinkable. 

There  is  on  record  now  in  one  city  in  particular 
a  system  of  training  for  individual  evangelism  that 
ought  to  find  a  duplicate  in  every  city  in  the  coun- 
try. Forty  classes  for  prayer  and  study  in  personal 
work  of  a  soul-winning  kind  meet  each  week  in 
as  many  different  churches.  The  leaders  of  the 
groups  meet  also  for  special  training  in  directing 
the  work  of  the  classes.  They  are  all  engaged  in 
the  study  of  a  common  textbook  and  of  their 
own  experience  in  soul-winning  during  the  week. 

This  leads  me  to  say  a  few  words  about  such 
a  class. 

Among  the  text-books  the  Bible  must,  of  course, 
take  first  place.  When  Philip  found  the  Ethiopian 
puzzled  over  a  certain  passage  "  he  began  at  the 
same  place  and  preached  unto  him  Jesus."  The 
individual  evangelist  must  know  his  Bible.    In  it 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  173 

is  all  the  truth  he  needs  in  dealing  with  men.  It 
is  not  dispute  and  argument  that  is  needed,  but 
such  a  knowledge  of  the  Word  of  God  that  we  can 
tell  dying  men  and  women  what  God  has  to  say 
about  sin  and  salvation.  Then  there  are  the  many 
modern  helps,  such  as : 

"  Taking  Men  Alive,"  by  Trumbull. 
"  How  to  Bring  Men  to  Christ,"  by  Torrey. 
"  Introducing  Men  to  Christ,"  by  Weatherford. 
"  Second  Timothy  Two  Fifteen,"  by  Sayles. 
"  Individual  Work  for  Individuals,"  by  Trum- 
bull. 

"  Recruiting  for  Christ,"  by  Stone. 

"  Studies  for  Personal  Workers,"  by  Johnston. 

"  Personal  Work,"  by  Sayford. 

"  Winning  Men  to  Christ,"  by  Evans. 

"  The  King's  Greatest  Business,"  by  Gilbert. 

In  all  of  these  are  to  be  found  extremely  helpful 
courses  of  study.  The  class  should  not  be  large. 
Six  members  are  sufficient  and  such  a  number  is 
far  better  than  six  times  that  number.  The  class 
should  be  composed  exclusively  of  men  or  exclu- 
sively of  women. 

There  are  always  two  sides  to  such  a  course  of 
training,  the  theoretical  side  and  the  practical 
side. 

The  theoretical  side  deals  with  how  to  select  and 
approach  your  man.  Quite  often  the  Holy  Spirit 
will  make  your  selection  for  you.    At  the  most  un- 


174  EVANGELISM 

expected  time  and  in  the  most  unexpected  way  you 
will  find  yourself  fairly  driven  on  by  a  wellnigh 
irresistible  impulse  to  speak  to  some  certain  man 
about  his  soul.  Henry  Ostrom  enters  a  street  car 
and  something  says,  '*  Speak  to  the  conductor  ; 
speak  to  the  conductor !  " 

A  one-time  prominent  evangelist,  now  deceased, 
goes  downstairs  into  the  hotel  lobby  to  mail  a 
letter.  The  clerk  was  not  there,  but  a  policeman 
said,  "  I  will  mail  them  for  you."  Something  said, 
"  Speak  to  the  policeman;  speak  to  the  policeman!  " 
But  he  started  upstairs.  A  voice  said,  "  Why  did 
you  not  speak  to  that  policeman  about  Christ?" 
He  said,  "  It  was  because  it  would  not  do  any 
good."  "  How  do  you  know  ?  "  The  evangelist 
kept  going  up  all  the  time.  The  voice  said,  "  Are 
you  going  to  preach  to  others  and  then  be  a  cast- 
away yourself?"  He  said,  "No,  Lord,  I  will  go 
back  and  speak  to  him."  But  when  he  came  back 
to  the  office  the  policeman  had  gone. 

A  great  Christian  worker  entered  a  store  and 
something  said,  "  Speak  to  the  clerk ;  speak  to  the 
clerk! "  He  did  not  do  it,  but  went  out.  But  the 
voice  kept  speaking  for  an  hour  and  at  last  he  went 
back  and  asked  where  the  clerk  was  and  the  pro- 
prietor said,  "  We  had  an  awful  tragedy  here  a 
few  moments  ago.  Immediately  after  you  went  out 
the  clerk  that  waited  on  you  went  into  the  back 
room  and  shot  a  bullet  through  his  brain.  He  is 
back  there  now,  if  you  wish  to  see  him." 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  176 

It  was  this  way  with  Philip  and  the  Eunuch. 
And  when  the  Holy  Spirit  says,  "  Run;  speak/* 
if  we  have  not  feet  and  lips  to  obey  we  should 
ask  God  to  give  them  to  us  at  once,  for  sometimes 
when  opportunity  is  gone  the  wings  of  the  morning 
cannot  bring  it  back. 

But  in  the  study  of  this  subject  there  are,  of 
course,  certain  things  in  the  remembrance  of  which 
you  will  find  great  profit.  In  deciding  upon  those 
with  whom  to  deal  it  is  well  to  select  those  near- 
est you — members  of  your  own  family,  of  course, 
and  friends;  then  those  of  the  same  age  and  of  the 
same  sex;  perhaps  those  of  the  same  occupation, 
and  especially  those  to  whom  you  are  congenial. 
If  a  man  has  a  prejudice  against  another,  war- 
ranted or  otherwise,  this  second  man  is  the  last 
man  in  the  world  to  do  any  personal  work  with 
the  first  one. 

Then  comes  the  question  of  how  to  approach 
your  man. 

One  way  is  by  prayer.  Heaven  is  full  of  re- 
deemed spirits  because  people  have  prayed.  Pray 
definitely  for  God  to  regenerate  that  soul  and  live 
expecting  Him  to  do  it,  and  if  you  die,  die  believ- 
mg  it  shall  be  done. 

Another  way  is  by  literature.  This  is  one  of 
the  most  effective  methods  and  one  that  everybody 
can  employ.  It  is  said  that  Richard  Baxter  was 
converted  by  a  tract  brought  to  his  father's  door 
in  the  pack  of  a  pious  peddler.    Baxter  wrote  "  The 


176  EVANGELISM 

Saint's  Rest/*  and  that  converted  Philip  Doddridge. 
Doddridge  wrote  "  The  Rise  and  Progress,"  and 
that  converted  William  Wilberforce.  William  Wil- 
berforce  wrote  "  The  Practical  View,"  and  that  con- 
verted Thomas  Chalmers. 

Another  way  is  by  letter.  It  was  a  letter,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  brought  Henry  Clay  Trumbull  to 
Christ,  and  thousands  have  been  won  in  this  way. 
And  if  the  Christian  workers  of  this  country 
would  dedicate  their  pens  to  what  Bishop  Hughes 
has  called  "  Postal  Evangelism,"  God  would 
surprise  this  world  with  a  mighty  work  for 
Jesus  Christ. 

Then  perhaps  most  important  of  all  is  the  per- 
sonal interview.  This  should  always  be  when  the 
man  is  alone.  Argument  should  be  avoided  as  far 
as  possible;  the  utmost  patience  should  be  exer- 
cised. Some  one  has  said,  "  More  men  are  won 
by  siege  than  by  attack." 

The  practical  side  of  such  a  training  class  has 
to  do  with  the  reports  of  the  work  actually  done. 
One  might  as  well  seek  for  gold  for  the  mere  sake 
of  having  it  as  to  seek  an  equipment  for  this  kind 
of  work  for  the  mere  sake  of  knowing  how  to  do 
it.  One  would  be  quite  as  wrong  as  the  other. 
The  workers  should  bring  to  the  class  their  ex- 
periences of  the  week;  they  should  tell  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  they  have  met  and  helpful  sug- 
gestions should  be  given  them  for  the  further  prose- 
cution of  their  work  and  prayer,  for  the  case  under 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  177 

consideration  should  be  made  as  well  as  for  the 
workers  as  they  go  out  to  their  holy  tasks  for  an- 
other week. 

ORGANIZED   ACTION 

There  is  yet  a  third  and  last  thing  to  be  said, 
and  this  is  concerning  Action;  and  by  this  we 
have  had  in  mind  from  the  beginning  organized 
action. 

There  is,  I  am  sure,  all  too  much  general  fail- 
ure on  the  part  of  the  ministry  to  outline  definite 
programs  of  action  for  the  members  of  the 
church,  I  think  there  are  more  members  than  we 
have  dared  to  suspect  who  are  willing,  but  who 
are  waiting  for  leadership  and  for  such  organiza- 
tion as  will  help  to  make  operative  to  the  best 
possible  advantage  whatever  ability  they  may  have 
for  any  particular  work  which  ought  to  be  under- 
taken. 

We  have  time  only  for  the  merest  mention  of 
some  of  the  methods  which  have  been  signally  used 
of  God,  and  to  which  the  pastor  or  evangelist  will 
find  little  if  any  difficulty  in  persuading  a  goodly 
portion  of  his  people  to  give  themselves. 

The  Invitation  Plan  consists  of  a  select  number 
of  men  confidentially  banded  together  for  personal 
visitation,  pledged  to  make  a  certain  number  of 
calls  each  week,  and  meeting  regularly,  usually 
downtown  at  luncheon,  to  report  results  and  assign 
new  work. 


178  EVANGELISM 

Similar  to  the  Invitation  Plan  is  what  is  known 
as  the  Group  Method,  where  a  given  number  of 
men  select  a  given  number  of  cases  and  report  at 
a  weekly  meeting  throughout  the  year,  the  number 
in  the  group  and  the  number  for  whom  the  group 
is  working  always  remaining  the  same,  and  as  fast 
as  one  individual  is  brought  to  Christ  another  is 
added  to  the  list. 

The  Two-by-Two  Method  consists  of  two  in- 
dividuals setting  apart  one  night  in  the  week  and 
calling  together  on  those  in  whom  they  are  inter- 
ested. 

Many  churches  and  communities  have  used  with 
remarkable  success  the  plan  known  as  the  Simul- 
taneous Campaign  of  Individual  Evangelism.  This, 
in  a  word,  is  the  organization  in  the  church,  or  in 
all  the  churches  of  a  given  city  or  community,  of 
a  league  of  individual  evangelists,  each  member  of 
which  avows  his  purpose  to  lead  some  other  per- 
son to  Christ  within  a  given  period  of  time. 

Something  like  this,  though  involving  a  more 
detailed  program,  is  the  "  One  to  Win  One " 
method.  The  "Win  One  More  Fellowship"  is 
also  similar,  but  the  work  is  not  confined  to  any 
definite  period  of  time.  Booklets  setting  forth 
these  plans  in  full  detail  may  be  secured  from 
headquarters. 

If  but  a  small  portion  of  the  present  member- 
ship of  our  Protestant  churches  could  be  enlisted 
in  the  work  of  individual  evangelism,  and  if  some 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  179 

such  plans  as  these  just  suggested  were  thought- 
fully and  earnestly  put  into  operation  even  for  a 
single  year,  the  humiliating  record  of  the  net  gain 
to  our  churches,  which  we  have  been  compelled  to 
face  for  the  past  ten  years,  would  give  place  to 
abundant  cause  for  thanksgiving  throughout  all 
Christendom. 

And  after  all,  is  it  not  well  to  make  this  a  per- 
sonal matter?  Are  you  enlisted  yourself  in  this 
holy  work?  Can  you  recall  now  any  one  single  in- 
dividual who  has  been  brought  to  Christ  through 
any  personal  effort  of  your  own? 

In  one  of  Mr.  Mills'  books  is  the  story  of  Uncle 
John  Vassar.     He  was  not  a  minister,  he  never 
preached  in  the  pulpits,  but  he  was  a  man  that  had 
to  win  souls  for  Jesus  Christ.     He  was  converted 
when  he  was  about  twenty-five  years  of  age  when 
he  was  at  work  in  his  uncle's  brewery  at  Pough- 
keepsie.     In  those  days  the  people  thought  a  man 
could  make  beer  and  still  be  a  Christian.     After 
he  was  converted,  John  made  a  little  rack  above 
the  vat  where  he  was  working  on  which  he  kept 
his  Bible.     He  wanted  to  have  his  Bible  there  so 
he  could  study  it.    But  soon  there  came  an  explo- 
sion.   There  will  always  be  an  explosion  when  you 
get  the  Word  of  God  too  close  to  the  whiskey 
business.     This  one  blew  John  clear  out  of  the 
'  brewery  and  he  never  went  back.    He  was  always 
winning   some   one   for  Jesus.     The   people   saw 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  was  upon  him.     He  was 


180  EVANGELISM 

full  of  Him  all  the  time.  He  went  into  a  high- 
class  hotel  in  Boston  looking  for  a  friend  and  in 
the  parlour  there  was  a  fashionably  dressed  lady  and 
John  went  right  up  to  her  and  said,  "  Excuse  me, 
Madame,  but  are  you  a  Christian  ?  '*  She  snapped 
out,  "  Of  course  I  am."  He  said,  "  Excuse  me, 
I  didn't  mean  that  kind  of  a  Christian;  have  you 
ever  been  born  again  ?  "  "  Why,  no,"  she  said, 
"  we've  gotten  all  over  being  born  again  in  Bos- 
ton, we  do  not  believe  in  it  any  more."  "  Well," 
said  Uncle  John,  as  he  pulled  out  his  little  Bible, 
"  have  you  gotten  all  over  the  Bible  in  Boston,  or 
do  you  believe  that  some  more?"  "Oh,  yes,  we 
beheve  the  Bible,  of  course."  **  Well,"  he  said, 
'*  will  you  let  me  read  it  to  you  ?  "  And  he  took 
his  Bible  and  began  to  pour  the  Word  of  God  into 
her  heart  until  her  soul  burned  within  her  and  the 
tears  came  into  her  eyes.  His  friend  came  in  and 
he  had  to  go,  but  he  said,  "  Before  I  go,  may  I 
pray  with  you  ?  "  She  answered,  "  I  wish  you 
would."  He  knelt  down  by  the  side  of  that  proud 
woman  and  asked  God  to  save  her  then  and  there. 
Her  husband  came  in  afterwards  and  seeing  tears 
in  her  eyes  he  asked,  "  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  She 
said,  *'  There  has  been  a  strange  little  man  here. 
He  came  up  and  asked  me  if  I  was  a  Christian — 
if  I  had  been  born  again,  and  then  he  preached 
to  me  and  read  the  Bible,  and,  husband,  I  never 
felt  in  my  life  as  I  feel  now."  He  said,  "Why 
didn't  you  tell  him  to  attend  to  his  own  business  ?  " 


INDIVIDUAL  EVANGELISM  181 

She  said,  "  Dear,  if  you  had  been  here,  you  would 
have  thought  it  was  his  business."  O  beloved, 
would  any  one  think  of  you  that  it  was  your  busi- 
ness to  preach  Jesus?  Is  it  your  business?  Will 
you  let  it  be  your  business? 


VIII 

THE  INVITATION  AND  THE  AFTER- 
MEETING 


THE  INVITATION  AND  THE  AFTER-MEETING 

I.    Introductory  Remarks. 

1.  The  genius  of  the  evangelistic  sermon  necessitates 

appeal  for  decision  of  some  kind. 

2.  The  benefit  of  public  decision  and  confession. 

3.  Danger  and  seriousness  of  slighting  the  work  at 

this  point. 

4.  The  temptation  to  slight  the  work  at  this  point 

due  to 

(a)  Fallacy;  that  this  part  of  the  work  be- 

longs wholly  to  the  Holy  Spirit  and  man 
must  leave  it  alone. 

(b)  Fatigue;  the  work  so  exhausting. 

(c)  Fear;  of  failure  to  secure  results. 

5.  Importance  of  thoroughness. 

II.   The  Invitation. 

1.  The  respect  due  the  audience  for  temperamental 

reasons   and  the  consequent   avoidance  of   em- 
barrassing propositions  and  unwise  methods. 

2.  The  necessity  of  final  definiteness  in  the  appeal. 

3.  Various  methods  of  invitation. 

4.  The  comparative  advantages  of  using  the  inquiry 

room,  and  of  doing  the  work  before  the  larger 
audience  retires. 

III.  The  After-meeting. 

1.  Various  ways  of  conducting  it. 

(a)  The  Inquiry  Room. 

(b)  The  Altar  Service. 

2.  Instructions   to   Converts. 

3.  Caution  in  counting  results. 

IV.  The  Wisdom  and  method  of  this  work  in  connection 
with  the  regular  services  of  the  church. 


VIII 
THE  INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING 

THERE  is  no  more  difficult  piece  of  work 
in  the  ministry  of  the  Kingdom  than  bring- 
ing men  to  a  decision  for  Christ.  Certainly 
there  is  none  more  important.  To  fail  here  spells 
defeat  in  toto. 

The  subject,  therefore,  of  the  Invitation  and  the 
After-meeting  is  and  ought  to  be  one  of  all-absorb- 
ing interest.  It  is  a  subject  that  deals  with  eter- 
nal destinies  and  the  hosts  of  heaven  and  hell  are 
contending  for  the  issue.  It  is  at  this  point  that 
many  a  ministry  otherwise  strong  is  lamentably 
weak.     It  is  souls,  not  sermons,  that  count. 

I  am  deeply  conscious  of  the  delicacy  of  the  par- 
ticular phase  of  the  work  I  am  now  to  discuss. 
We  must  have  method,  but  I  confess  to  a  hesitancy 
about  recommendation  in  this  regard,  lest  we  em- 
phasize form  at  the  expense  of  spirit  and  so  hear 
the  rattle  of  the  machinery  of  man  instead  of  not- 
ing the  operation  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

Yet  if  there  are  methods,  and  ways  of  doing  this 
work  which  have  been  generally  owned  of  God  in 
rich  production  of  results,  then  the  preacher  who 
is  supposed  to  be  wise  in  winning  souls  is  guilty 

185 


186  EVANGELISM 

of  an  indifference  which  is  both  pathetic  and  inex- 
cusable if  he  neglects  an  acquaintance  with  them 
such  as  will  help  him  to  make  full  proof  of  his  min- 
istry at  this  particular  and  all-important  point. 

We  begin  this  discussion,  therefore,  by  saying 
that  the  very  genius  of  the  evangelistic  sermon 
necessitates  appeal  for  decision  of  some  kind.  It 
is  the  favourable  verdict,  however  expressed,  the 
evangelist  is  seeking  by  his  message.  It  is  with 
this  in  view  that  the  whole  of  his  message  has  been 
prepared.  Not  to  give  opportunity  for  expression 
of  some  kind  and  in  some  way  may  mean  for  some 
soul  that  delay  of  decision  which  if  it  does  not 
prove  fatal  to  that  soul's  eternal  interest  will  at 
least  rob  some  of  its  life  of  that  richness  of  mean- 
ing which  can  only  be  found  in  Jesus  Christ. 

Popilius,  by  order  of  the  Roman  senate,  de- 
manded of  Antiochus  that  he  withdraw  his  army 
from  the  King  of  Egypt.  Antiochus  desired  time 
to  deliberate,  but  the  haughty  Roman  drew  a  circle 
about  him  on  the  sand  and  said,  **  In  hoc  stans  de- 
libera" — "In  this  standing-place  deliberate!"  i.e., 
"  Answer  before  you  move."  And  so  must  the 
evangelist  press  men  to  an  immediate  surrender  to 
the  demands  of  Almighty  God. 

The  benefit  of  public  decision  and  confession  it 
would  hardly  seem  necessary  to  argue.  A  man 
owes  it  not  only  to  Christ  and  his  neighbour,  but 
to  himself. 

He  owes  it  to  Christ.    Christ  hung  on  the  cross 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    18T 

in  public  for  him  and  he  can  well  afford  to  stand 
up  in  public  for  Christ. 

He  owes  it  to  his  neighbour.  His  example  is 
worth  more  than  he  estimates.  And  he  can  well 
afford  to  stop  and  consider  whether  he  is  going 
to  meet  in  this  life  his  obligation  or  meet  one  day 
at  the  bar  of  God  his  responsibility  for  neglect- 
ing it. 

He  owes  it  to  himself.  It  puts  him  on  record 
in  a  way  that  calls  out  the  best  that  is  in  him. 
It  is  a  continual  reminder  to  him  of  what  he  has 
done  and  a  help  to  make  good  the  profession  he 
has  made.  He  knows  that  all  his  friends,  and  in 
some  instances  the  whole  city,  will  know  what  he 
has  done  and  expect  him,  as  some  one  put  it,  "  to 
deliver  the  goods,**  and  he  will  not  find  it  quite  so 
easy  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  Lord  in  the 
days  that  are  to  follow.  It  brings  to  a  man  a  sat- 
isfaction and  a  self-respect  he  can  find  in  no  other 
way.  It  strengthens  his  faith  and  gives  him  a 
spiritual  nerve  tonic  as  nothing  else  will  do. 

I  remember  one  time  in  Oil  City,  Pa.,  a  fine- 
looking  business  man  came  down  the  aisle  and  when 
I  took  his  hand  he  said,  "  Biederwolf ,  I've  had  a 
very  unsatisfactory  time  of  it.'*  I  said,  "  What's 
the  matter?  **  He  said,  "  I  joined  church  two  weeks 
ago  and  I  have  been  miserable  ever  since.**  "  Well," 
I  said,  "that's  a  queer  fix  to  get  into  for  joining 
church;  what's  the  cause  of  it?  "  "  Well,"  he  said, 
"I  declared  I  never  would  walk  down  this  aisle; 


188  EVANGELISM 

I  didn't  see  the  necessity  of  it.  It  was  a  bit  too 
public  for  me.  I  said,  '  It  don't  make  any  differ- 
ence anyhow;  I'll  be  a  Christian,  and  I'll  join 
church,'  and  so  I  joined  the  church  two  weeks  ago 
and  I've  felt  like  a  despicable  coward  ever  since; 
I  couldn't  seem  to  get  anywhere  and  I  have  been 
just  as  miserable  as  I  could  be,  but  thank  God,  I 
have  walked  this  aisle  tonight;  and  say,  Biederwolf, 
it  does  make  a  difference."    Of  course,  it  does. 

Before  discussing  the  nature  of  the  invitation 
and  the  conduct  of  the  after-meeting  we  simply 
must  pause  to  emphasize  the  seriousness  and  the 
danger  of  slighting  the  work  at  this  point  as  well 
as  the  absolute  necessity  of  thoroughness  in  prose- 
cuting it. 

The  temptation  to  abbreviate  this  part  of  one's 
evangelistic  ministry  finds  its  source  in  three 
causes :  Fallacy,  Fatigue  and  Fear. 

By  fallacy,  I  mean  misconception  or  ziDrong  judg- 
ment. I  have  had  an  acquaintance  with  a  few  really 
great  preachers  who  preached  powerful  sermons  of 
an  evangelistic  sort,  but  who  never  gave  an  invita- 
tion because  they  thought  such  a  procedure  to  be 
interfering  with  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Such 
preachers  have  been  satisfied  to  close  the  meeting 
with  a  solemn  prayer  or  perhaps  putting  a  tract 
in  the  hands  of  any  desiring  it. 

I  have  understood  the  reasoning  of  these  men 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    189 

thoroughly,  but  confess  never  to  have  found  any- 
real  wisdom  in  it.  It  is  true  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
can  and  often  does  work  altogether  independently 
of  human  instrumentality.  But  it  is  just  as  true 
that  He  can,  more  often  does  and  always  is  ready, 
to  co-operate  with  sane  and  sanctified  human  effort, 
and  for  aught  we  know  may  often  be  wholly  de- 
pendent upon  it.  As  if  the  Holy  Spirit  stood  aloof 
from  the  workings  of  natural  law!  We  believe 
such  men  are  entirely  deceived. 

Fatigue  is  another  reason.  There  is  no  work 
quite  so  hard  as  evangelistic  work.  Preaching  every 
night  and  every  day  and  preaching  as  one  must 
preach  in  an  evangelistic  ministry  is  in  itself  ex- 
hausting enough.  To  quote  an  English  writer: 
"  Sometimes  men  talk  about  the  evangelist's  lack 
of  work  before  he  goes  into  the  pulpit.  Well,  every 
evangelist  must  answer  for  that  himself;  but  when 
he  is  there  he  must  work.  Wrestling  with  souls  is 
infinitely  the  hardest  work  the  present  writer 
knows  anything  about.  Half  an  hour  of  it  means 
more  exhaustion,  nervously,  than  half  a  week  of 
sermon  study." 

The  evangelist  also  knows  that  as  he  enters  the 
invitation  period  and  the  work  of  the  after-service 
he  is  about  to  undertake  another  thirty  minutes 
or  more  of  pleading  and  praying  and  agonizing 
which  is  even  more  exhausting  than  was  the  preach- 
ing of  the  sermon  he  has  just  finished.  I  have  many 
times  said,  and  every  evangelist  who  does  really 


190  EVANGELISM 

thorough  work  will  bear  me  out,  that  so  far  as 
fatigue  is  concerned,  so  far  as  the  expenditure  of 
sympathy  and  life,  of  nervous  force  and  vitality 
in  general  is  concerned,  I  would  rather  preach  three 
sermons  and  pronounce  the  benediction  than  to 
preach  one  and  give  myself  conscientiously  to  the 
afterwork  of  which  we  are  speaking. 

This  fact  is  not  without  its  temptation.  We  be- 
lieve we  know  a  few  men  of  no  little  prominence, 
the  results  of  whose  work  have  not  been  alto- 
gether comforting  because  of  this  fact,  but  who, 
if  they  worked  during  the  period  under  considera- 
tion as  hard  as  they  preach,  would  multiply  their 
usefulness  many  fold  in  the  ministry  to  which  they 
have  been  called. 

The  other  reason  is  fear.  Sometimes,  especially 
with  less  experienced  men,  it  is  difficult  to  know 
just  what  to  do  or  how  to  do  it.  Even  the  most 
experienced  men  have  been  at  times  in  the  place 
where  they  not  only  faced  perplexity,  but  where  it 
seemed  as  if  the  invitation  if  given  would  meet 
with  no  response,  and  fearful  of  meeting  defeat 
they  are  tempted  to  leave  it  ungiven.  I  have  al- 
ways said  that  a  preacher  who  could  preach  with- 
out sweating  has  missed  his  calHng;  but  a  pastor 
said  to  me  the  other  day,  "  If  I  never  perspire 
when  I  am  preaching  I  always  do  when  I  am  just 
about  to  give  the  invitation.'* 

It  is  well  just  here  to  be  reminded  that  one  ought 
always  to  go  well  prepared  to  undertake  the  work 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    191 

that  immediately  follows  the  sermon.  He  should 
have  thought  out  some  method  of  invitation  and 
some  plan  for  the  after-meeting  which  seemed  to 
him  to  best  fit  the  message  he  was  to  deliver.  If 
any  one  should  say,  "  This  is  too  mechanical  and 
leaves  no  place  for  the  Holy  Spirit,"  I  would  reply 
that  it  is  making  the  very  best  possible  provision 
for  ithe  Holy  Spirit  and  His  leading. 

When  a  man  is  confused  and  embarrassed;  when 
he  is  nervous  and  excited  and  his  faculties  all  un- 
steady, th^  Holy  Spirit,  who  works  on  and  through 
these  faculties,  will  find  it  hard  to  whisper  His 
leading  to  a  man  in  a  condition  like  that.  But 
when  a  man,  simply  because  he  knows  he  is  in  some 
measure  ready,  finds  himself  composed  and  steady, 
better  able  to  think,  better  able  to  discern,  better 
able  to  sense  the  atmosphere,  he  is  in  just  that  con- 
dition where  the  Holy  Spirit  can  best  prompt  him 
to  do  and  say  just  what  He,  the  Holy  Spirit,  more 
than  any  man,  knows  should  be  done,  and  very 
often  the  things  the  man  thought  he  would  do 
before  going  to  the  service  are  just  the  things 
he  did  not  do,  simply  because  he  was  in  a  condi- 
tion to  be  led  to  something  better  and  more  ef- 
fective. 

But  whatever  the  reason  for  neglect  or  hurried 
work  at  this  part  of  the  service,  it  is  apparent  with- 
out comment  how  destructive  and  fatal  it  may  be. 
With  the  eternal  destiny  of  immortal  souls  hanging 
in  the  balance  this  is  no  time  to  play  and  no  time 


192  EVANGELISM 

to  hurry.  When  a  soul  unsaved  has  come  under 
the  influence  of  an  evangehstic  message,  has  heard 
the  summons  of  high  heaven  to  repent  and  believe, 
has  been  powerfully  moved  by  the  persuasive  woo- 
ings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  then  goes  away  un- 
decided, God  alone  knows  whether  he  will  ever 
come  quite  so  close  to  the  Kingdom  again. 

There  is  one  song  I  cannot  get  away  |from, 
if  I  would,  and  I  never  preach  to  the  unsaved  with- 
out it  ringing  in  my  ears: 

"Almost  persuaded  now   to  believe; 
Almost  persuaded  Christ  to  receive." 

[Then  another  part  of  it : 

"  Almost  cannot  avail ; ; 
Almost  is  but  to  fail. 
Sad,  sad,  that  bitter  wail, 
Almost!  but  lost!" 

J 
THE  NATURE  OF  THE  INVITATION 

In  discussing  the  nature  of  the  invitation,  atten- 
tion ought  'first  to  be  called  to  the  respect  due  the 
audience  for  temperamental  reasons  and  the  conse- 
quent avoidance  of  embarrassing  propositions  and 
unwise  methods. 

Human  nature  is  no  more  uniform  in  its  make- 
up than  any  other.  Its  temperaments  and  its  tastes 
are  as  various  as  its  prejudices  are  sometimes 
strong;  and  what  would  be  wise  and  acceptable  in 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    193 

one  place  would  be  altogether  out  of  place  in  an- 
other. 

The  wise  man,  the  man  who  really  becomes  mas- 
ter of  the  situation,  will  study  the  people  with  whom 
he  has  to  deal  and  govern  himself  somewhat  by 
the  conditions  as  he  finds  them.  That  was  a  piece 
of  choice  delicacy  of  expression  when  the  Master 
said,  "  I  will  make  you  fishers  of  men."  It  takes 
a  harpoon  for  a  whale,  but  it  takes  the  delicate, 
coquettish  fly  for  a  mountain  trout.  Thomas  Chap- 
ness  once  said,  "  A'  fisher  is  very  careful  about  his 
bait.  If  I  want  to  catch  a  codfish  I  fling  them  out 
a  bait  as  big  as  a  clock  weight  and  they  swallow 
it.  But  if  I  am  going  for  salmon  I  have  a  fly  and 
whip  the  stream  with  delicacy  and  art." 

We  are  facing  the  fact  that  there  are  those  in 
the  church,  as  well  as  out  of  it,  who  have  abso- 
lutely no  use  for  public  evangelistic  work.  Many 
elements  which  we  need  not  discuss  enter  into  the 
creation  of  such  sentiment.  But  he  certainly  is  a 
blundering  workman  who  repels  and  sometimes  dis- 
gusts by  thrusting  crude,  blunt  methods  and  em- 
barrassing propositions  upon  an  audience  of  this 
nature  when  a  reasonable  amount  of  thought  and 
tact  and  patience  may  remove  its  prejudice  and 
mould  its  opinion  and  make  possible  what  other- 
wise would  be  out  of  the  question  and  suicidal  if 
attempted. 

Another  word  ought  to  be  said  about  the  neces- 
sity of  definiteness  in  the  appeal.    The  appeal  should 


194  EVANGELISM 

be  made  in  terms,  the  meaning  of  which  no  one  can 
fail  to  clearly  understand,  and  that  meaning  should 
be  in  its  final  address  a  definite  acceptance  of  and 
committal  to  Jesus  Christ  as  Lord  and  Saviour. 
Asking  people  to  rise  who  have  a  desire  to  live  a 
better  life  or  merely  requesting  those  who  desire 
prayer  to  lift  their  hand  or  soliciting  signatures 
of  those  desiring  to  be  Christians  is  a  sorry  sub- 
stitute for  what  genuine  evangelistic  work  ought 
to  be.  These  forms  of  invitation  may  be  all  right 
enough — that  is,  they  are  good  as  far  as  they  go, 
but  they  don't  go  far  enough. 

These  gentler  forms  of  invitation,  these  part- 
way approaches  may  very  properly  be  given  with 
a  view  to  making  it  easy  for  a  man  to  come,  but 
if  he  comes  no  farther  than  this,  when  he  does 
come  he  in  reality  arrives  nowhere  at  all.  It  is 
well  enough  and  often  wise  to  have  them  first  com- 
mit themselves  thus  far;  to  make  the  first  step,  as 
it  were,  an  easy  one;  but  to  stop  here  is  to  stop 
short  and  to  stamp  the  whole  transaction  with  the 
mark  of  pitiable  insufficiency. 

By  all  means,  before  the  work  is  done  set  clearly 
before  the  mind  the  things  to  be  believed  and  let 
the  anxious  sinner  hear  a  clear-cut  call  to  their 
definite  acceptance  and  you  will  find  that  call  ap- 
preciated and  men  will  come  and  when  they  do 
so  come  it  will  be  with  an  abandonment  that  will 
fill  heaven  with  the  glad  songs  of  rejoicing  angels. 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    195 

METHODS  OF  INVITATION 

Bearing  in  mind  what  has  just  been  said,  it  will 
not  be  amiss  to  consider  some  of  the  various  meth- 
ods of  invitation.    There  are  three  general  forms. 

The  simplest  and  easiest  way  to  close  the  prin- 
cipal service  is  by  merely  asking  those  who  are 
interested  to  remain  for  an  after-service  or  retire 
to  an  inquiry-room.  This  was  the  method  used 
altogether  by  Dr.  Nettleton,  one  of  the  most  noted 
evangelists  America  has  ever  produced.  He  never 
asked  people  to  lift  their  hand  or  rise  to  their  feet, 
or  come  to  the  "anxious  seat"  or  "mourners* 
bench,"  as  it  was  known  with  some  in  those  days. 
This  was  also  one  of  the  favourite  methods  of 
Dwight  L.  Moody. 

A  second  method  is  to  ask  those  interested  to    i 
lift  their  hand  or  stand  as  an  indication  of  their 
desire  or  their  concern  and  then  distribute  cards  for 
their  signature,  and  then  ask  them  to  remain  for 
an  after-meeting  or  to  retire  to  the  inquiry-room. 

The  usual  first  invitation  given  for  the  purpose 
of  finding  out  who  are  interested  is,  as  a  rule,  given 
by  asking  such  persons  to  lift  their  hand  or  rise 
to  their  feet.  In  a  very  large  audience  the  latter  is 
preferable.  This  invitation  is  usually  given  by  ask- 
ing in  substance,  "  How  many  of  you  who  are  con- 
cerned about  your  soul  will  lift  your  hand  (or  rise 
to  your  feet)  and  say  by  that  sign,  *  Pray  for  me  '  "  ? 
Of  course  it  may  be  variously  worded.    For  brev- 


196  EVANGELISM 

ity's  sake  we  will  therefore  understand  in  what 
follows  that  by  "  the  usual  first  invitation  *'  refer- 
ence is  always  had  to  this  initial  request  calling  for 
the  lifted  hand  or  the  rising  to  one^s  feet. 

The  cards  used  are  variously  worded  but  usually 
expressive  of  the  desire  for  prayer  and  a  deter- 
mination to  undertake  the  Christian  life.  This 
method  was  used  largely  by  B.  Fay  Mills.  A  cut 
of  the  Decision  Card  used  by  the  workers  of  the 
National  Federated  Evangelistic  Committee  will  be 
seen  on  page  144. 

A  third  method  is  to  ask  them  to  come  forward 
for  prayer  or  as  expressing  their  determination  to 
live  a  Christian  life.  The  approach  to  this  invita- 
tion may  be  made  in  numberless  ways.  To  recount 
them  all  would  fill  a  volume.  We  here  give  a  few 
of  what  we  believe  to  be  the  superior  sort.  Re- 
member, please,  we  are  now  dealing  with  the  third 
method  of  invitation. 

(a)  At  the  close  of  the  sermon  with  the  audience 
standing,  ask  without  any  preliminary  approach 
those  willing  to  accept  Christ  to  come  forward.  Of 
course  the  exact  wording  of  the  invitation  will  de- 
pend somewhat  upon  the  sermon.  This  method  is 
followed  almost  exclusively  by  Mr.  Sunday  and 
many  other  strong  evangelists. 

(b)  Give  the  usual  first  invitation  and  then  after 
the  signing  of  the  inquirer's  card  (or  without  so 
doing)  ask  them  to  come  forward. 

(c)  After  the  usual  first  invitation,  request  those 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING     197 

who  have  friends  for  whom  they  desire  prayer  to 
lift  the  hand  for  them  and  then  ask  them  to  rise  and 
put  their  request  in  two  words :  "  My  son/*  "  My 
brother,"  etc.;  then  ask  this  same  class  to  lead 
the  way  in  coming  forward  to  pray  for  their 
friends  and  request  those  who  manifested  interest 
in  themselves,  or  are  now  interested,  to  come 
with  them. 

(d)  Give  the  usual  first  invitation;  then  ask  those 
who  are  praying  for  some  one  in  the  audience  to 
rise.  Then  ask  this  class  to  lead  the  way  in  coming 
forward  to  pray  for  their  friends  and  request  those 
who  manifested  interest  in  themselves,  or  are  now 
interested  to  come  with  them. 

(e)  Another  invitation  somewhat  similar  to  the 
last  two  mentioned  is,  after  giving  the  usual  first 
invitation,  to  ask  those  who  have  already  been  for- 
ward during  the  meetings,  to  designate  it  by  rising; 
then  ask  them  to  come  again  with  those  who  have 
that  night  responded  to  the  first  invitation.  This  is 
helpful  to  them  and  it  encourages  those  coming  for 
the  first  time. 

(f)  After  the  usual  first  invitation  is  given  to 
those  interested,  ask  all  especially  concerned  for 
friends  to  rise ;  then  ask  all  Christians  not  satisfied 
to  rise;  and  then  ask  either  of  these  two  latter 
classes  or  both  of  them,  but  especially  the  latter,  to 
lead  the  way  and  ask  those  to  whom  the  first  in- 
vitation was  given  to  come  with  them. 

(g)  After  the  usual  first  invitation  to  lift  the 
hand  (or  rise)  is  given,  ask  all  who  came  to  Christ 


198  EVANGELISM 

after  fifty  years  of  age  to  rise ;  then  ask  in  turn  those 
who  came  after  40,  30,  20  and  10  to  rise.  Then 
ask  those  to  whom  the  first  invitation  was  given 
(and  any  others  now  concerned  about  themselves) 
to  rise  and  join  those  already  standing  and  then  urge 
this  latter  group  to  come  forward.  By  way  of  en- 
couragement it  might  be  well  to  ask,  let  us  say,  those 
who  had  been  converted  after  they  were  30  to  come 
also.  Just  how  many  of  these  helps  to  the  inquiring 
ones  are  used  ought  to  depend  upon  the  atmosphere 
and  the  spirit  of  the  meeting.  If  needed  at  all  they 
will  be  needed  less  and  less  as  the  meetings  deepen 
in  interest. 

(h)  Give  the  usual  first  invitation:  Then  ask: 

(i)  all  who  have  served  Christ  fifty  years  and 
have  found  Him  always  faithful  to  rise  and  remain 
standing,  (2)  all  whose  homes  have  been  visited  by 
death  and  who  have  found  Christ  precious  then  to 
rise  and  stand,  (3)  all  who  have  experienced  some 
great  temptation  and  found  strength  through 
Christ  to  overcome  to  rise  and  stand. 

Comment  a  moment  on  this  remarkable  testimony 
and  ask  those  to  whom  the  first  invitation  was  given 
and  any  others  now  concerned  to  rise  and  join  those 
standing;  then  ask  them  to  come  forward  them- 
selves. One  of  the  three  classes  just  mentioned  may 
be  asked  to  lead  the  way  if  it  is  thought  best. 

(i)  That  species  of  invitation  which  grows  im- 
mediately out  of  the  sermon  is  always  to  be  com- 
mended.   One  of  the  best  I  have  seen  was  after  a 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING     199 

sermon  on  "  Prepare  to  meet  thy  God."    The  in- 
vitation was  given  in  this  way; 

(i)  How  many  of  you  are  prepared  to  meet  God 
at  any  time,  not  because  of  your  own  righteousness 
but  because  of  your  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  your 
Lord  and  Saviour,  will  you  rise  and  help  me  to  pray 
for  the  unsaved  tonight? 

(2)  How  many  who  are  still  sitting  are  ready 
now  to  say  that  if  God  should  call  you  tonight  you 
would  like  to  be  prepared  and  to  know  that  God 
would  be  pleased  with  you  when  you  meet  Him,  will 
you  rise  and  join  these  now  standing  and  say  by 
that  act,  "  I  would;  pray  for  me." 

(3)  Then  the  preacher  prayed  and  with  out  say- 
ing, "  Amen,"  paused  and  said,  "  How  many  of  you 
who  have  just  risen  will  now  say,  *  I  will  here 
and  now  accept  by  faith  the  eternal  salvation  of  my 
soul.  I  will  acknowledge  God  as  my  Father  and 
His  Son  Jesus  Christ  as  my  Lord  and  Saviour,  and 
I  want  before  the  prayer  is  closed  that  you  should 
pray  for  me  especially,'  will  you  lift  up  your  hand 
and  say,  *  I  will  and  I  do.'  "  After  this  the  preacher 
said,  "  We  will  now  finish  the  prayer  and  we  will 
come  together  here  in  front  to  do  it."  He  then 
requested  those  who  had  requested  prayer  and  those 
who  had  made  the  vow  to  come  forward. 

Of  course  some  of  these  invitations  sound,  as  we 
read  them  in  print,  rather  blunt,  but  they  must  be 
phrased  by  the  evangelist  as  the  occasion  demands 
and  interspersed  with  such  remarks  as  will  make 


200  EVANGELISM 

everything  seem  to  be  and  really  be  altogether  nat- 
ural. 

While  those  interested  are  being  urged  by  the 
evangelist  to  come  forward  the  personal  workers 
are  dealing  with  them  individually,  trying  to  show 
them  why  they  should  thus  yield  themselves  to 
Christ,  encouraging  them  to  do  what  the  evangelist 
has  requested  and  offering  to  go  with  them  if  they 
so  wish.  This  is  on  the  whole  a  wise  method  of 
procedure.  Indeed  if  there  be  any  real  travail  of 
soul  Christian  people  cannot  but  speak  to  the  un- 
saved and  without  this  travail  little  if  any  results 
need  be  expected. 

Three  things  should  be  said  just  here. 

Workers  should  so  far  as  possible  be  selected  and 
trained  for  this  particular  duty ;  trained  to  be  tactful 
and  courteous  and  especially  to  never  over-urge  any 
one. 

They  should  be  systematically  stationed  through- 
out the  entire  building.  This  does  not  mean  that 
Christians  in  general  should  not  be  urged  to  assist 
in  this  work.    They  should  be. 

As  the  meeting  deepens  in  interest  it  is  wise  at 
least  at  times  to  give  the  invitation  without  any 
personal  work  being  done.  I  have  made  it  a  rule 
more  or  less  in  my  own  meetings,  when  the  interest 
seemed  to  warrant  it,  to  publicly  request  that  no 
personal  work  be  done  but  that  those  who  want  to 
come  and  are  brave  enough  to  do  it  to  come  without 
any  one  asking  them.    And  they  come.    There  are 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    201 

always  some  and  sometimes  many  who  dislike  to 
be  personally  approached  and  are  just  waiting  for 
an  invitation  of  the  above  nature  to  publicly  do  the 
thing  they  know  they  ought  to  do. 

The  only  objection  to  personal  work  among  the 
audience  arises  from  the  lack  of  tact  and  sometimes 
the  questioned  life  of  an  occasional  worker.  But 
it  is  better  now  and  then  for  one  to  take  umbrage 
than  for  the  hundreds  to  miss  the  word  or  sign  of 
interest  that  may  encourage  them  in  yielding  al- 
legiance to  God. 

The  principal  advantage  in  calling  those  interested 
and  under  conviction  to  come  forward  lies  in  what 
may  be  termed  the  accumulative  effect  of  this  kind 
of  an  invitation.  When  12  have  come,  it  is  by  so 
much  easier  for  the  next  12  to  come;  and  when  24 
have  come,  the  next  24  are  more  likely  to  be  on 
their  way;  and  when  48  have  come,  the  next  48  find 
it  that  much  harder  to  stay  away;  until  under  the 
accumulative  influence  and  pressure  of  the  occasion 
I  have  seen  literally  hundreds  gather  down  about 
the  place  of  prayer. 

This  advantage  is  largely  lost  by  the  invitation 
merely  to  retire  to  an  inquiry-room.  But  the  in- 
vitation to  the  inquiry-room  on  the  other  hand  has 
its  advantages  as  well. 

It  frees  the  meeting  of  the  merely  curious  and  of 
every  one  who  may  be  out  of  sympathy  with  what 
is  going  on. 

It  commits  those  who  attend  as  being  at  least 


202  EVANGELISM 

interested  enough  to  do  so  and  consequently  as 
somewhat  willing  to  be  approached. 

It  gathers  its  audience  close  together,  which  is  not 
without  its  psychological  effect,  and  this  together 
with  the  facts  just  noted  makes  it  easier  for  those 
seeking  Christ  to  publicly  express  themselves. 

THE  AFTER-MEETING 

But  whatever  the  form  of  invitation,  when  it  has 
Y  been  given  and  met  with  a  response,  the  work  is  by 
no  means  at  an  end.  We  have  seen  them  coming 
forward  or  going  into  an  inquiry-room;  but  what 
then?  The  reply  to  this  question  is,  The  After- 
meeting. 

The  after-meeting  ought  to  be  pretty  much  the 
same  whether  conducted  in  an  inquiry-room  or  in 
the  main  service  room,  before  the  larger  audience  or 
after  those  of  the  larger  audience,  who  may  wish 
to  do  so,  have  retired.  Here  is  the  place  where 
deep,  definite,  durable  work  must  be  done. 

Before  any  definite  dealing  with  the  inquirers 
takes  place  it  is  often  well  to  make  out  of  the  after- 
meeting  opportunity  for  another  invitation.  This 
too  may  be  done  in  numerous  ways.  Some  of  the 
methods  used  in  the  larger  service  may  be  repeated 
and  among  others  not  already  mentioned  the  follow- 
ing are  very  helpful. 

I.  Will  those  who  are  Christians  tell  us  how  long 
you  have  been  a  Christian  and  give  us  one  reason 
why  it  pays  to  be  a  Christian. 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    20a 

2.  Will  those  of  you  who  found  in  coming  to 
Christ  some  difficulty  in  the  way,  some  obstacle  or 
something  that  made  it  hard  for  you  to  decide,  make 
it  known  by  lifting  the  hand.  Will  you  rise  one 
after  the  other  and  tell  us  what  it  was  and  how  you 
overcame  it. 

3.  Will  those  in  whose  experience  there  was  some 
one  thing  especially  that  influenced  you  and  helped 
you  perhaps  more  than  any  other  to  make  the  de- 
cision please  lift  the  hand.  Will  you  rise  and  tell 
us  what  it  was. 

4.  How  many  of  you  believe  that  God  answers 
prayer  for  the  unsaved?  How  many  of  you  can 
say  that  your  prayer  for  some  unsaved  one  has  been 
answered?    Will  you  rise  and  tell  us  about  it. 

5.  How  many  of  you  were  won  to  Christ  by  per- 
sonal work  on  the  part  of  somebody  else?  Will  you 
rise  and  tell  us  about  it. 

In  any  one  of  these  ways  something  will  be  said 
that  will  help  somebody  else  and  always  something 
that  the  evangelist  can  catch  and  use  as  the  basis  of 
another  invitation. 

But  now  that  the  last  invitation  has  been  given 
the  time  has  come  for  final,  definite  decision  and 
public  confession.  I  am  personally  very  partial  at 
this  time  to  what  used  to  be  termed  and  is  by  many 
yet  termed  the  "  Altar-service."  The  old-fashioned 
inquiry-room,  introduced  perhaps  by  Nettleton  and 
followed  so  largely  by  Moody  and  Gipsy  Smith,  did 
not  as  a  rule  have  such  a  service  but  was  devoted 


204  EVANGELISM 

chiefly  to  the  evangelist,  the  pastor  and  the  personal 
workers  moving  about  among  the  inquirers  and 
seeking  to  give  them  such  advice  as  might  be  needed 
to  help  them  through  to  Christ.  I  believe,  however, 
that  room  should  be  made  for  the  altar-service 
whether  the  after-meeting  be  held  in  the  inquiry- 
room  or  at  the  close  of  the  service  in  the  larger 
audience  room. 

t  Personal  dealing  with  inquirers  may  take  place 
both  before  and  after  the  altar-service  or  both,  but 
the  altar-service  should  in  either  case  by  all  means  be 
held.  By  an  altar-service  is  meant  a  dealing  with 
the  inquirers,  ensemble, — together.  If  for  any 
reason,  there  is  prejudice  against  the  expression, 
some  other  phraseology  may  be  used  with  equal  pro- 
priety and  effectiveness. 

Here  as  before  remarked  the  work  must  be  very 
thorough.  The  evangelists  who  are  equally  thor- 
ough at  this  point  have  pretty  much  the  same 
method  of  procedure. 

My  own  procedure  is  to  have  those  who  have 
come  forward  rise.  I  then  explain  to  them  what  I 
hope  they  have  signified  by  their  action  and  set  forth 
as  thoroughly  as  possible  what  it  means  to  be  a 
Christian,  and  then  ask  them  if  they  are  ready  to 
say  they  will  so  accept  Jesus  Christ  as  their  Lord 
and  Saviour,  and  if  so,  to  lift  their  hand  and  say 
audibly,  "  I  will."  Then  comes  a  kneeling  together 
in  the  space  reserved  for  this  purpose  right  down 
in  front  of  the  pulpit. 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    206 

Some  may  regard  the  posture  as  a  matter  of  very 
little  consequence.  But  it  is  much  every  way.  It 
brings  down  stiff  knees  that  perhaps  have  never 
knelt  before;  begets  a  sacred  awe  and  reverence 
which  pertains  to  no  other  posture;  and  no  other 
posture  should  be  encouraged  at  such  a  meeting 
where  there  is  room  to  kneel. 

A  verse  of  some  appropriate  hymn  is  then  sung, 
such  as,  "I  am  coming,  Lord;  coming  now  to 
Thee,"  "  Just  as  I  am,"  "  I  am  coming  to  the  Cross." 
Then  some  one  who  really  knows  how  to  pray  sends 
up  a  petition  to  God  covering  the  intentions  and 
the  needs  of  those  kneeling  in  His  presence.  Then 
because  it  is  impossible  for  each  to  utter  a  separate 
audible  prayer,  they  are  led  in  a  concert  prayer  sen- 
tence after  sentence.  I  use  a  very  simple  compre- 
hensive prayer  and  never  change  it  throughout  the 
entire  series  of  meetings. 

After  this  prayer  and  before  they  have  risen  to 
their  feet  a  brief  exhortation  to  ^assurance  on  the 
ground  of  God's  written  Word  is  given  and  then 
they  are  asked  to  rise.  A  few  words  of  congratula- 
tion are  then  given  and  they  are  asked  to  express 
publicly  their  intention  of  continuing  faithful  in  the 
way  they  have  started,  by  saying,  "  I  do."  Some 
words  of  advice  and  counsel  as  to  the  future  are 
then  given.  Then  while  a  song  is  being  sung,  their 
names  and  church  preference  are  secured  on  the  de- 
cision card  (see  page  144),  a  leaflet  containing  in- 
formation as  to  the  meaning  of  the  Christian  life 


206  EVANGELISM 

and  how  to  succeed  in  it  is  given  to  them.  Any  who 
are  not  satisfied  are  asked  to  remain  for  further 
prayer  and  help  if  desired,  and  the  meeting  is  over. 

A  few  words  of  caution  are  needed  about  record- 
ing the  results  of  the  meetings  from  day  to  day, 
not  only  because  of  the  criticism  engendered  by 
reason  of  abuse  at  this  point,  and  the  consequent 
hurt  to  the  cause  of  evangelism  in  general,  but  be- 
cause of  the  assistance  and  satisfaction  rendered  to 
the  pastors  in  the  movement  when  the  matter  is 
handled  in  both  a  careful  and  conscientious  way. 

The  evangelist  is  much  at  fault  himself  at  this 
point,  especially  in  this  day,  and  upon  him  much  of 
the  responsibility  rests  for  making  misrepresenta- 
tion possible  by  the  kind  of  invitation  he  gives. 

To  preach  a  temperance  sermon  and  ask  all  who 
will  take  a  stand  against  the  liquor  business  to  come ; 
to  preach  a  patriotic  sermon  and  ask  all  who  will 
stand  for  God  and  native  land  to  come;  to  preach 
against  the  dance  and  ask  all  who  will  renounce  it 
and  all  who  do  not  dance  and  never  will  to  come; 
to  preach  on  consecration  and  ask  all  who  want  to 
live  closer  to  God  to  come;  to  preach  to  thousands 
of  little  children  and  ask  all  who  want  to  become 
Christians  to  come;  to  work  up  a  concerted  move 
on  the  part  of  some  lodge  and  ask  them  to  come, 
and  when  they  have  come  and  have  shaken  the 
evangelist's  hand,  to  usher  them  into  the  front  seats 
and  secure  their  names  and  count  them  as  "trail- 
hitters**  or  as  so  many  "decisions** — ^this  is  a 


INVITATION  AND  AFTER-MEETING    207 

pitiable  travesty  on  what  evangelistic  work  ought  to 
be. 

We  are  not  criticising  the  invitation  but  any  evan- 
gelist who  uses  such  figures  to  swell  his  total  of  con- 
versions in  the  columns  of  the  press,  or  permits 
them  to  be  so  used,  is  utterly  unworthy  of  a  place 
in  the  sacred  work  to  which  he  professes  to  have 
been  called.  The  whole  church  knows  there  is 
absolutely  no  excuse  for  this  sort  of  thing  and  the 
world  looks  on  and  smiles  a  knowing  sort  of  smile. 
Some  critics  have  been  charitable  enough  to  call  it 
"  faulty  arithmetic,"  but  it  can  hardly  be  described 
in  such  gentle  phraseology  as  that. 

We  do  not  deprecate  the  publishing  of  figures. 
It  is  helpful.  But  the  figures  should  not  be  falsified, 
and  if  they  are  reported  at  all  should  make  it  very 
plain  as  to  how  many  of  them  were  reconsecrations 
on  the  part  of  Christians  and  how  many  of  them 
were  professed  conversions  and  how  many  of  them 
also  were  little  children. 

Just  how  far  the  methods  we  have  discussed  can 
be  used  in  the  work  of  any  particular  church  de- 
pends upon  the  character  and  temperament  of  its 
members.  Church  members  may  be  educated  to  an 
appreciation  of  such  work  if  it  is  done  wisely  and 
with  caution.  In  a  church  unaccustomed  to  and 
prejudiced  against  evangelistic  methods  in  general 
I  would  advise  for  many  weeks  the  inquiry-room 
with  the  simplest  form  of  after  meeting. 

It  is  ours  to  make  revival  results  far  more  glorious 


208  EVANGELISM 

than  they  often  are  if  we  will  only  give  ourselves 
to  it.  Let  us  seek  the  Lord  until  He  comes  and  rains 
righteousness  upon  us.  Let  us  be  quick  to  improve 
every  opportunity  and  every  wise  suggestion  that 
we  may  make  full  proof  of  our  ministry.  Let  us 
hunger  and  thirst  for  any  power  that  will  make  us 
wise  in  bringing  men  home  to  God  and  let  us  re- 
joice in  every  other  man's  power  to  do  the  self-same 
thing.  Thus  going  out  into  the  whitened  fields, 
spending  and  being  spent,  becoming  all  things  to  all 
men,  if  by  all  means  we  might  save  some,  so  indeed 
shall  the  harvest  come  when,  "  He  that  soweth  and 
he  that  reapeth  shall  rejoice  together." 


IX 
CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS 
I.    Necessity  of  fidelity  at  this  Point. 

II.    Conservation  and  the  Evangelist. 

1.  Nature  of  the  preaching. 

2.  Thoroughness  in  deahng  with  inquirers. 

III.    Conservation  and  the  Pastor. 

1.  The  need  of 

(a)  A  pastoral  heart. 

(b)  A  definite  plan. 

2.  The  means. 

(a)  Early  reception  into  church  membership. 

(b)  Enlisting  interest  of  the  church  in  pros- 

pective members. 

(c)  Special  character  of  the  Sunday  morning 

services. 

(d)  The  use  of  literature. 

(e)  The  social  phase  of  the  work. 

(f)  Enlisting  converts  at  once. 

(i)  In  Bible  study. 
(2)  In  some  definite  form  of  Chris- 
tian  work. 

(a)  Personal     work.       Cam- 

paign of  Organized  In- 
dividual Evangelism. 

(b)  Social.  Service. 


IX 

CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS 

IT  is  at  the  point  to  which  we  have  now  come, 
the  point  of  Conservation,  perhaps,  beyond  all 
others  that  the  work  of  evangelism  needs  to 
be  safeguarded. 

In  a  ministers'  meeting  in  a  certain  city,  one  of 
the  pastors  said  that  he  did  not  believe  in  evangel- 
ists nor  in  evangelistic  meetings  because  out  of  103 
inquirers  whose  names  had  been  sent  to  him  when 
Dwight  L.  Moody  was  in  that  city  some  years  ago, 
only  two  were  in  the  active  membership  of  his 
church.  Another  pastor  remarked,  "  That  is  very 
peculiar,  for  I  received  precisely  the  same  number  of 
names,  and  in  looking  over  my  church  roll  the 
other  day  I  found  that  all  of  them  except  two  are 
now  consistent  members  of  my  church."  In  view 
of  such  experiences  we  may  well  be  careful  not  to 
draw  too  hasty  conclusions. 

Conservation  is  a  great  word.  If  the  witness  of 
science  is  reliable,  then  science  through  all  the  ages 
has  been  administering  a  silent  and  yet  powerful 
rebuke  to  our  extravagance  and  carelessness  in  gen- 
eral in  the  law  known  as  the  Conservation  of 
Energy,  which  would  have  us  believe  that  energy 
or  any   force  once  communicated  to  a  body   or 

211 


212  EVANGELISM 

system  of  bodies  is  never  lost.  It  may  be  dis- 
tributed but  it  always  exists  as  potential  energy. 

Conservation  merely  means  the  preservation  from 
loss  or  waste  or  injury.  We  are  hearing  much 
about  it  in  these  times.  It  has  been  made  im- 
perative by  the  multiplied  demands  consequent  upon 
the  awful  tragedy  of  world  war  through  which  we 
have  just  passed.  But  shall  we  be  less  careful  in 
the  spiritual  kingdom  where  such  tremendous  issues 
are  involved? 

When  the  Men  and  Religion  Forward  Movement 
came  to  its  close  after  a  year  of  revival  work  of 
various  kinds  in  hundreds  of  cities  and  towns  all 
over  the  United  States,  the  leaders  of  the  work  felt 
so  much  the  need  and  realized  so  much  the  wisdom 
of  conservation  that  a  Conservation  Congress  was 
called  at  New  York  City  where  nearly  2,000  dele- 
gates met  from  thirty-seven  different  states  to  em- 
phasize this  fact  and  to  study  together  the  best 
means  of  making  it  effective. 

Nowhere  so  much  as  at  the  close  of  an  evangel- 
istic campaign  is  the  need  for  careful  and  thorough 
methods  of  conservation  so  imperative.  It  is  just 
at  this  time  that  the  real  duty  and  opportunity  of 
the  church  begins.  Let  the  work  during  the  re- 
vival period  be  ever  so  thorough,  if  the  work  im- 
mediately following  it  is  not  just  as  thorough  much 
of  that  which  might  have  been  accomplished  will  be 
lost. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  permanency  of  the 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        213 

work  depends  much,  very  much,  upon  the  fideHty  of 
the  pastor  just  at  this  point.  It  is  sad  to  think  of 
the  many  who  have  taken  the  first  step  toward 
Christ  who  will  slip  back  again  into  the  old  life 
and  be  lost  to  Christ,  it  may  be  forever,  if  some  one 
does  not  care  for  them  and  carefully  direct  them  in 
the  way  they  should  go  and  in  the  things  they  should 
know. 

I  have  had  people  say  to  me,  "  Just  wait  and  you 
will  see  that  they  won't  hold  out.'*  I  think  a  speech 
like  that  is  almost  criminal.  I  am  sure  the  spirit 
that  prompts  it  never  inspires  one  word  of  encour- 
agement for  those  who  are  trying  to  hold  out.  Sup- 
pose that  all  members  of  the  church  had  a  spirit 
like  that!  You  might  as  well  expect  a  new-born 
babe  to  sustain  its  life  by  tugging  at  the  cold  and 
unresponsive  breast  of  a  lifeless  mother  as  to  put 
one  just  born  into  the  Kingdom  into  the  fellowship 
of  a  church  like  that  and  expect  it  to  hold  out.  The 
Church  is  the  bride  of  Christ  and  the  mother  of 
God's  children,  and  would  you  think  her  a  wise  and 
considerate  mother  who  would  wait  to  see  if  her 
baby  just  born  would  hold  out  and  live  and  at  the 
same  time  fail  to  protect  it  from  the  cold  and  to 
provide  it  with  properly  prepared  food!  But  the 
spiritual  life  is  even  more  delicate  than  the  physical, 
and  because  of  such  treatment  many  a  one  has  been 
chilled  and  starved  in  the  very  house  of  God.  It  is 
the  business  of  the  church  to  see  that  the  converts 
do  hold  out. 


214.  EVANGELISM 

Conservation  is  of  course  the  work  of  the  pastor 
and  his  people  and  the  evangelist  as  a  rule  does  not 
share  in  it  except  in  so  far  as  he  is  careful  to  give 
to  his  own  work  such  a  character  as  will  make  the 
work  of  conservation  all  the  easier  for  those  who 
must  remain  after  he  has  passed  on  to  other  fields 
of  labour.  But  this  after  all  is  no  small  factor 
among  the  forces  and  the  influences  that  ensure 
permanency  to  the  work  accomplished. 

There  are  just  two  points  at  which  the  evan- 
gelist can  render  yeoman  service  to  this  cause; 
first,  in  the  nature  of  his  preaching,  and  second, 
in  the  thoroughness  with  which  he  deals  widi 
inquirers. 

The  nature  of  his  preaching.  There  are  entirely 
too  many  evangelists,  and  this  is  quite  often  true  of 
the  pastors,  whose  sermons  are  little  else  than  a 
string  of  stories — just  tellers  of  anecdotes.  No  one 
believes  in  the  anecdote,  the  story,  the  illustration 
more  than  I.  It  has  its  place  in  the  most  proper 
sermon.  But  the  crying  need  of  the  day  in  the 
evangelistic  world  is  for  preaching  that  gives  evi- 
dence both  of  a  little  more  study  and  hard  work 
on  the  part  of  the  preacher,  and  hews  a  little  closer 
to  Paul's  injunction  to  Timothy,  when  he  told  him 
to  "  Preach  the  Word." 

I  am  especially  concerned  about  this  latter.  I 
have  gone  from  section  to  section  of  this  country, 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        215 

and  have  sat  in  the  presence  of  white-haired  minis- 
ters and  Hstened  while  they  told  me  of  the  times 
of  refreshing  they  used  to  have;  how  the  labourers 
would  tear  their  aprons  from  them  and  come  run- 
ning from  the  factory  to  the  house  of  God;  how 
men  who  had  not  bent  the  knee  for  fifty  years  would 
ask  the  privilege  to  pray;  and  young  and  old  would 
tremble  for  their  sins  and  cry  out  in  deep  concern, 
"  What  must  we  do  ?  "  And  I  have  wondered  if 
one  of  the  reasons  why  it  is  not  so  today  is  not  to 
be  found  in  the  marked  contrast  between  the  preach- 
ing of  then  and  now.  I  do  not  mean  in  style,  for 
this  must  change;  but  in  the  substance  of  the  mes- 
sage. And  perhaps  if  there  is  any  one  point  at 
which  we  have  failed  in  modern  times,  it  is  in  not 
giving  to  the  trenchant  and  fundamental  doctrines 
of  the  Word  the  emphasis  God  expected  when  He 
first  gave  us  the  call  to  be  a  preacher  of  the  Gospel 
of  His  glorious  Son. 

Believe  me,  this  is  the  thing  that  people  want. 
Let  a  man  get  firmly  established  on  the  great  doc- 
trines of  the  Word  and  he  feels  and  knows  that  he 
has  got  granite  under  his  feet  cut  from  the  ever- 
lasting hills  of  truth. 

There  is  the  doctrine  of  sin.  Men  must  be  made 
to  see  that  sin  is  something  more  than  a  microbe. 
The  curse  of  modern  evangelism  is  the  shallowness 
of  conviction.  People  are  accepting  the  Gospel  in- 
vitation pretty  much  as  if  it  were  a  personal  favour 
^to  God  to  have  them  do  so. 


216  EVANGELISM 

There  is  the  doctrine  of  sin's  deserts.  What  is 
the  use  of  crying  "  Flee  from  the  wrath  to  come," 
if  there  is  no  coming  wrath  from  which  to  flee? 

There's  the  doctrine  of  sin's  atonement.  These 
are  days  of  fulcrum  salvation.  But  a  religion  that 
begins  underneath  a  man  has  the  wrong  working 
principle.  The  religion  of  the  cross  is  the  almighty 
hand  of  God  reaching  down. 

There  is  the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth.  What 
a  man  needs  is  a  new  heart;  not  a  new  suit  of 
clothes.  And  there  is  Repentance  and  Forgiveness 
and  Justification  by  faith.  And  if  we  would  give 
up  some  of  our  tear-fetching  stories  and  root  our 
mind  and  our  conscience  and  our  soul  deep  down  in 
the  fundamental  truths  of  God's  Word  we  would 
find  again  the  rock-rooted  conviction  and  sound 
conversion  of  earlier  days,  and  when  a  soul  comes 
under  such  circumstances  it  will  come  with  an  ex- 
perience out  of  which  it  will  not  so  easily  be  en- 
ticed again  by  the  beggarly  elements  of  the  world. 

The  other  thing  the  evangelist  can  do  is  to  deal 
thoroughly  zvith  his  inquirers.  Much  of  modern 
evangelism  is  lamentably  weak  just  here.  If  there 
is  ever  a  time  of  soul  crisis  it  is  during  the  invita- 
tion and  after-meeting  of  a  revival  service,  when 
a  soul  under  deep  conviction  for  sin  is  anxiously 
seeking  to  know  Him  whom  to  know  aright  is  life 
eternal.  How  when  an  invalid  in  the  critical  period 
hangs  balancing  between  life  and  death  does  the 
physician  watch  every  symptom  and  anxiously  count 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        217 

the  pulse  beats  in  a  minute !  And  how  much  greater 
than  that  ought  to  be  the  concern  of  the  spiritual 
adviser  when  he  realizes  of  what  tremendous  con- 
sequences an  item  of  advice,  a  right  or  wrong  direc- 
tion may  be ! 

God  pity  us  if  we  are  to  be  careless  and  hurried 
at  a  time  Hke  that!  And  yet  I  have  gone  into  the 
meetings  of  some  evangelists  and  the  work,  or 
rather  the  lack  of  it,  at  the  close  of  the  sermon  was 
pathetic  and  heart-breaking. 

They  used  to  talk  in  other  times  about  "  ex- 
periencing religion."  The  coinage  of  a  better  ex- 
pression is  difficult  to  conceive.  A  professed  con- 
version in  which  there  has  been  no  real  experience 
of  a  changed  heart  is  no  conversion  at  all.  But 
we  have  improved  upon  the  expression  so  much  in 
this  day  that  we  now  talk  of  "hitting  the  trail." 
In  some  way  the  idea  has  prevailed  with  many  that 
walking  the  aisle  and  taking  the  evangelist's  hand 
is  all  that  is  needed  and  as  a  consequence  many  of 
our  evangelistic  campaigns  have  degenerated  very 
largely  into  a  general  proposition  of  hand-shaking 
and  card-signing  or  name-getting.  But  this  is  a 
sorry  spectacle  for  a  time  like  that  when  an  eternal 
destiny  is  hanging  in  the  balance. 

As  a  result  of  this  hurried  and  superficial  dealing 
with  inquirers  we  find  quite  often  when  the  revival 
is  over  that  the  results  are  not  at  all  commensurate 
with  what  we  had  hoped  and  what  we  had  a  reason- 
able right  to  expect.     In  some  of  our  more  recent 


218  EVANGELISM 

evangelistic  campaigns,  and  campaigns  too  of  excep- 
tionally large  proportions,  it  has  been  discovered 
that  not  more  than  one-tenth,  and  sometimes  even 
less  than  one -tenth,  of  the  people  who  "  hit  the 
trail,"  so  to  speak,  furnished  evidence  of  their  con- 
version by  later  reception  into  church  membership. 
When  anything  like  this  is  true,  it  is  a  sad  commen- 
tary on  what  genuine  evangelistic  work  ought  to  be. 

As  the  result  of  a  series  of  meetings  one  pastor 
was  given  246  decision  cards  and  of  the  people  rep- 
resented by  them  209  became  members  of  his  church 
and  of  these  200  answered  roll-call  one  year  later. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  thorough  and  conscientious 
work  must  have  been  done  by  both  evangelist  and 
pastor  in  an  instance  like  that. 

Evangelists  are  wont  to  say  that  when  they  go 
they  leave  the  responsibility  for  the  permanence  of 
the  results  behind;  the  responsibility  then  becomes 
the  pastor's.  But  this  is  far  from  the  truth  and 
it  is  anything  but  fair  to  shift  the  responsibility  for 
poor  results  of  a  revival  effort  upon  the  pastor  if 
the  evangelist  has  trifled  with  the  work  at  the  very 
point  where  permanence  or  impermanence  is  largely 
and  in  a  sense  altogether  determined. 

CONSERVATION   AND  THE  PASTOR 

But  we  must  now  come  back  to  what  was  said 
a  moment  ago.  The  evangelist  may  have  been  ever 
so  thorough,  but  if  the  pastor  is  not  just  as  thorough 
in  the  follow-up  work  much  that  might  have  been 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        219 

conserved  will  be  lost.     Conservation  is  therefore 
chiefly  the  work  of  the  pastor  and  his  people. 

The  pastor  must  of  course  have  a  pastoral 
heart.  If  a  man  has  the  least  touch  of  that  di- 
vine compassion  that  stirred  the  heart  of  the  Son  of 
Man  when  He  saw  the  multitude  like  sheep  without 
a  shepherd;  if  he  has  any  genuine  concern  at  all  for 
the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  souls  which  God  has 
made  it  possible  for  him  to  reach,  he  will  not  fail 
at  least  in  consecrated,  earnest  effort  to  reach  and 
hold  and  build  them  up  in  the  fear  of  God  and  in 
the  doctrines  of  the  Gospel.  And  if  he  does  not 
have  this  compassion  and  this  concern,  though  he 
be  a  minister  of  the  Gospel  or  a  professor  in  a 
Theological  Seminary,  and  call  himself  a  Christian, 
he  has  not  yet  come  into  possession  of  the  Spirit 
of  the  great  Christ  whose  concern  for  him  and  for 
you  and  me  and  the  multitude  was  outpoured  in 
the  blood  that  poured  from  His  wounded,  broken 
heart  on  Calvary. 

Shortly  after  the  close  of  a  series  of  meetings, 
which  it  was  my  privilege  to  conduct  and  where 
God  had  richly  honoured  the  preaching  of  His 
(Word,  a  paper  was  sent  to  me  in  which  a  minister, 
who  had  not  co-operated  in  the  meeting  because  of 
lack  of  sympathy,  as  he  said,  with  the  method,  had 
aired  his  sentiments  in  regard  to  the  work  through 
which  the  churches  of  the  city  had  just  gone.  He 
said  it  remained  to  be  seen  whether  the  work  had 


220  EVANGELISM 

any  thoroughness  in  it  and  at  the  same  time  ex- 
pressed himself  quite  freely  on  the  fact,  as  he  would 
have  it,  that  many  of  those  professing  conversion 
would  not  hold  out.  He  then  said  that  he  had  re- 
ceived nearly  300  cards  representing  people  who 
had  professed  conversion  and  stated  a  preference 
for  his  church.  He  said  of  course  it  was  the 
duty  of  the  church  to  welcome  these  people  if  they 
wished  to  come.  Then  he  threw  out,  as  it  were,  a 
challenge,  almost  it  seemed  in  a  spirit  of  a  wager 
that  it  would  not  be  accepted,  that  if  they  wished 
to  make  good  they  should  come  to  the  prayer  meet- 
ing and  make  it  known  or  hunt  up  his  church  offi- 
cials or  himself  and  show  by  their  fruits  the  sin- 
cerity of  their  profession.  How  could  it  be  expected 
that  the  results  of  a  revival  effort  could  be  con- 
served through  the  ministry  of  a  man  with  a  spirit 
like  that.  It  hadn't  seemed  to  dawn  upon  him  that 
it  was  his  business  to  go  out  and  encourage  them 
to  come  in. 

The  pastor  must  also  have  some  definite  plan 
for  this  particular  part  of  the  work  and  then  con- 
scientiously work  the  plan.  No  pastor  can  have 
have  any  reasonable  hope  for  the  best  results  in 
Conservation  without  this.  It  is  worth  the  best 
thought  and  finest  energy  of  any  pastor's  brain 
and  hand. 

The  thoughtful  pastor,  the  pastor  deeply  con- 
cerned about  revival  results,  will  find  plenty  of 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        221 

things  to  do  as  he  applies  himself  to  the  task  of 
Conservation,  but  among  other  things  the  following 
six  ought  to  be  done. 

An  early  reception  into  church  membership. 
Don't  wait.  Gather  those  who  give  evidence  of 
genuine  conversion  into  the  church  at  once.  Make 
as  uncomfortable  as  possible  that  professing 
Christian  in  your  congregation  who  says  he  can  be 
a  Christian  and  stay  out  of  church  membership.  If 
it  is  right  for  one  to  stay  out,  it  is  right  for  two; 
and  if  it  is  right  for  two,  it  is  right  for  two  thou- 
sand; and  if  everybody  did  like  that  one  man  does, 
it  would  be  a  sorry  condition  of  affairs. 

But  these  converts  need  the  church  much  more 
than  the  church  needs  them.  While  the  impressions 
are  still  fresh  upon  them,  while  they  are  ductile  and 
in  the  shapable  period,  they  should  be  encouraged 
and  helped  in  every  possible  way.  Above  every- 
thing else  they  should  be  made  to  see  their  great 
need  of  just  the  kind  of  help  the  church  can  bring 
to  them  and  be  induced  to  realize  that  their  al- 
legiance to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  involves  a  re- 
sponsibility to  the  institution  that  Christ  established 
to  propagate  His  faith  throughout  the  world.  To 
delay  at  this  point  may  be  to  lose  some  of  the  con- 
verts altogether. 

The  enlistment  of  church  members  with  a  iMew 
to  assisting  the  pastor  in  this  work.  It  is  impossible 
for  any  one  pastor  to  do  this  work  alone  especially 
if  the  revival  results  shall  have  been  at  all  large. 


222  EVANGELISM 

There  is  a  lot  of  unutilized  energy  in  every  church. 
Steam  was  waiting  to  run  locomotives  long  before 
Watt  saw  the  kettle-lid  rise.  Electric  waves  had 
been  running  waste  from  the  dawn  of  time  until 
Marconi  learned  how  to  direct  them.  It  is  so  with 
the  energy  of  the  church.  And  a  wise  and  vigilant 
leadership  will  not  fail  to  find  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  church  some  task  for  every  member  to  do, 
and  rounding  up  of  the  converts  of  a  revival  cam- 
paign for  church  membership  is  a  work  in  which 
every  member  can  have  a  part  if  the  assignment  of 
such  work  be  carefully  made. 

You  will  find  as  a  rule  that  it  is  best  to  assign 
each  convert  to  perhaps  two  of  the  members.  This 
may  often  mean  that  each  member  may  have  a  share 
in  looking  after  several  converts.  This  service 
should  not  cease  with  the  convert's  reception  into 
church  membership,  but  should  continue  in  other 
forms  for  some  months  after  until  that  convert  is 
thoroughly  introduced  into  the  life  and  work  of 
the  church. 

In  the  city  of  Syracuse,  New  York,  Rev.  T.  F. 
Keeney,  the  pastor  of  one  of  the  largest  Methodist 
churches  there,  followed  out  this  plan  at  the  close 
of  a  revival  campaign  and  he  says  that  he  gathered 
into  his  church  nearly  all  the  professed  converts 
who  had  stated  a  preference  for  it,  and  that  all 
who  did  come  in  were  held  and  gave  37  per  cent 
of  the  church  benevolence  during  the  first  year 
of  their  Christian  life. 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        223 

The  special  character  of  the  Sunday  morning 
service.  This  service  for  several  weeks  should  be 
devoted  to  such  themes  as  are  fundamental  to  a 
true  and  an  earnest  Christian  life.  Getting  con- 
verts is  one  thing;  keeping  them  is  quite  another; 
and  to  be  kept  they  must  be  trained  and  established 
in  the  faith. 

It  is  not  merely  members  that  the  church  needs. 
The  Lord  told  Gideon  that  the  people  that  were 
with  him  were  too  many.  What  wiser  thing  could 
a  pastor  therefore  do  than  to  plan  out  for  his 
Sunday  morning  services  a  systematic  course  of 
instruction  for  the  converts,  dealing  with  the  evi- 
dences of  Christianity,  the  fundamental  doctrines 
of  the  faith,  the  meaning  of  the  church  ordinances 
and  the  covenant  engagement  entered  into  by  join- 
ing the  church. 

Certainly  this  is  a  duty  every  pastor  owes  to  those 
uniting  with  his  church,  and  there  is  no  time  so 
opportune  for  doing  it  as  at  the  Sunday  morning 
service  when  they  are  most  likely  in  attendance. 
And  if  he  will  do  it,  he  will  find  himself  surrounded 
by  a  church  membership  not  only  rooted  and 
grounded  in  the  faith,  but  one  upon  which  he  can 
depend  to  help  him  put  forward  the  concerns  of 
the  Kingdom  when  the  call  for  service  comes,  in- 
stead of  a  church  full  of  people  who  do  not  know 
when  they  were  converted  or  what  they  were  con- 
verted for,  or  whether  or  no  they  were  converted 
at  all. 


224.  EVANGELISM 

The  iise  of  literature.  The  church  has  yet  to 
learn  the  power  of  the  Gospel  in  literature.  A  table 
of  carefully  selected  literature  should  always  be 
kept,  the  literature  sold  at  cost  or  at  a  small  profit 
in  the  interest  of  some  part  of  the  church  work. 

On  this  table  the  pastor  should  see  that  there 
are  some  leaflets  and  books  especially  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  those  having  just  entered  the  Christian 
life.  Tracts  may  very  properly  and  with  great 
benefit  be  mailed  to  such  people  and  in  various  ways 
be  used  to  the  strengthening  and  making  secure  the 
young  Christian  in  his  new-found  faith.  There  is 
no  way  to  calculate  how  great  may  be  the  influence 
of  the  right  kind  of  reading  on  a  human  life  at  such 
a  time  as  this,  while  it  is  certain  that  much  of  the 
help  so  received  would  never  touch  his  life  in  any 
other  way. 

The  social  phase  of  the  work.  No  finer  nor  more 
Christian  thing  could  be  done  than  for  a  reception 
to  be  given  by  the  members  to  those  just  coming 
in.  It  is  not  only  true  that  the  convert  has  broken, 
and  wisely,  with  much  of  his  former  companion- 
ship and  is  therefore  lonely  and  quite  naturally 
hungering  for  new  and  higher  fellowship;  but  if  he 
is  ever  to  receive  the  spiritual  help  which  he  so  much 
needs  and  which  the  church  alone  can  furnish  he 
must  be  made  to  feel  that  the  church  is  his  spiritual 
home  and  that  here  friendships  are  to  be  formed 
that  are  to  be  both  helpful  and  eternal. 

The  church  ought  to  be  a  social  centre  for  its 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        225 

members  and  their  friends — not  an  institution  sup- 
ported by  oyster  suppers  and  festivals,  but  a  place 
where  people  can  find  in  the  name  of  Christ  such 
high  social  enjoyments  and  spiritual  fellowship  as 
will  help  them  to  realize  that  they  are  members  of 
the  same  family  in  the  Lord.  That  would  be  a 
strange  family  whose  members  were  not  well  enough 
acquainted  to  recognize  each  other  on  the  street,  and 
yet  this  is  altogether  too  much  true  of  most  church 
families.  Let  there  at  least  then  be  this  reception 
given  to  the  new  members  by  the  old. 

In  one  city  for  several  months  after  the  revival 
a  union  fellowship  meeting  was  held  every  Monday 
night  to  which  the  converts  were  invited  and  whose 
attendance  upon  which  was  most  encouraging.  The 
committee  in  charge  of  the  conservation  work  of 
the  campaign  reported  that  95  per  cent  of  all  the 
professed  conversions  proved  to  be  satisfactory. 

The  enlistments  of  the  converts  at  once  in  Bible 
s^ttfdy  and  in  some  definite  form,  of  Christian  serv- 
ice. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  convert  must  study 
his  Bible.  There  can  be  no  Virile  or  enduring 
Christian  growth  or  experience  without  sinking  the 
roots  of  one's  faith  deep  down  in  the  rich  soil  and 
the  fresh  springs  of  God's  Word.  Its  sincere  milk 
and  unadulterated  meat  is  as  certainly  indispensable 
for  the  new-born  babe  of  the  Kingdom  as  the  proper 
food  in  the  physical  world  is  for  the  development  of 
any  sort  of  vigorous  life  in  that  sphere.     Such  a 


226  EVANGELISM 

Bible  Class  therefore  should  be  organized  as  will 
afford  the  new  convert  opportunity  for  that  study 
of  the  Word  which  is  best  suited  for  his  need  in 
that  earliest  experience  of  his  Christian  life. 

But  Bible  study  alone  is  not  enough.  The  editor 
of  one  of  the  leading  Australian  religious  journals 
has  said,  "  The  churches  are  in  peril  today  of  dying, 
not  of  hardship  but  of  idleness.  They  perish  not 
because  their  faith  is  wrecked  by  external  storms, 
but  because  they  are  eaten  within  by  the  moth  and 
the  canker  worm  of  sloth.  The  converts,  the  new 
members,  come  expecting  courageous  and  sympa- 
thetic leadership,  a  leadership  that  shall  find  fitting 
tasks  for  them,  a  leadership  that  has  in  it  both  the 
seriousness  of  duty  and  the  fire  of  enthusiasm,  and 
this  is  what  every  church  needs  if  the  work  of  an 
evangelistic  campaign  is  to  permanently  enrich  the 
community."  Standing  water  always  stagnates  and 
so  does  a  standing  Christian.  A  Christian  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  servant,  and  this  he  will  be  if  he  has 
the  spirit  of  the  One  who  said,  "  I  am  among  you 
as  one  that  serveth." 

There  are  many  things  that  a  vigilant  leader- 
ship will  find  for  the  convert  to  do,  but  there  are 
two  phases  of  work  to  which  he  must  especially 
be  led  to  give  himself ;  one  is  Personal  Work  and 
the  other  is  Social  Service. 

Personal  work  is  something  that  every  Christian 
can  do.    They  saved  a  man  from  a  wreck  some  time 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        227 

ago  and  when  they  got  him  out  he  was  unconscious, 
and  when  they  brought  him  back  the  first  thing  he 
said  was,  "  There's  another  man."  Saved  himself, 
his  first  concern  was  for  somebody  else.  And  that 
is  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel.  It  is  for  such  a  purpose 
as  this  the  Christian  is  saved. 

A  profession  of  religion,  as  some  one  has  said, 
is  no  sinecure,  and  if  the  convert  says,  as  he  should 
say,  upon  entering  the  Christian  life,  "  Lord,  what 
wilt  Thou  have  me  to  do?",  he  will  experience  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  the  voice  that  repHes  tell- 
ing him,  as  it  told  Andrew,  to  first  find  his  own 
brother  and  bring  him  to  Christ. 

There  is  nothing  that  so  encourages  and  so 
strengthens  the  new  convert  in  his  own  Christian  ^ 
life  as  to  be  used  in  helping  some  one  else  into  a 
saving  knowledge  with  Jesus  Christ  and  he  will 
never  know  the  joy  of  real  Christian  experience 
until  he  is  so  used. 

No  one  needs  to  hesitate  about  this  work  because 
of  the  lack  of  opportunity  to  do  it.  Opportunities 
are  crowding  thick  all  around  about  us  and  if  we 
do  not  use  them  they  will,  we  are  given  to  under- 
stand, rise  up  in  eternity  to  speak  against  us. 

When  Jerry  McAuley  was  in  penitentiary  as  he 
walked  lock-step  with  the  other  prisoners  to  their 
meals  and  to  their  work  he  would  lean  forward  and 
talk  to  the  man  in  front  of  him  about  Christ.  A 
man  can  always  find  opportunity  for  this  kind  of 
work  if  he  is  really  looking  for  it. 


228  EVANGELISM 

A  young  woman  had  been  reading  the  life  of 
Frances  Willard  and  came  to  Dr.  Torrey  asking  if 
he  could  not  advise  her  how  to  do  something.  She 
wanted  to  make  her  life  count  like  that  perhaps 
of  Miss  Willard.  But  Dr.  Torrey  said  "  How 
about  the  members  of  your  own  family?  Are  they 
all  Christians?"  And  when  she  gave  a  negative 
reply,  he  said,  "  Why  not,  then,  begin  right  at 
home?  "  She  saw  it  and  Dr.  Torrey  later  lent  tes- 
timony that  as  he  watched  that  young  woman  she 
led  every  member  of  her  large  family  to  Christ, 
and  then  was  working  hard  with  the  same  purpose 
among  her  many  relatives. 

Because,  then,  of  the  fundamental  importance  of 
this  work  and  of  the  abounding  opportunity  to 
undertake  it,  and  because  of  God's  will  and  specific 
command  concerning  it,  as  well  as  the  possibilities 
connected  with  it  in  spreading  the  Gospel  and  en- 
riching the  life  of  the  Christian  worker,  the  pastor 
should  by  every  means  possible  encourage  the  con- 
verts in  making  it  a  part  of  their  own  Christian 
experience. 

There  should  be  a  Personal  Workers*  Training 
Class  for  this  particular  purpose.  The  best  books 
on  the  subject  (and  there  are  many  of  them)  should 
be  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  converts  who  are 
anxious  to  do  this  personal  service  for  others.  They 
should  be  made  acquainted  with  the  Word  of  God  as 
it  bears  on  the  subject  and  with  all  the  best  methods 
for  doing  this  blessed  and  all-important  work. 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        229 

methods  for  doing  this  blessed  and  all-important 
work. 

Just  here  will  be  seen  an  added  reason  why  a 
carefully  prepared  and  well-thought-out  campaign 
of  Individual  evangelism  should  be  undertaken  im- 
mediately at  the  close  of  the  series  of  public  evan- 
gelistic meetings.  The  pastor  who  puts  the  matter 
fairly  before  his  people,  especially  at  the  close  of  an 
evangelistic  campaign,  will  be  delightfully  surprised 
at  the  number  of  his  people  who  will  covenant  for 
this  particular  form  of  work  under  his  leadership, 
and  he  will  be  especially  delighted  at  the  large  per- 
centage of  new  converts  whom  he  will  find  not  only 
ready  but  anxious  to  have  a  share  in  it.  Such  a 
campaign  of  individual  or  personal  evangelism  at 
such  a  time  should  under  no  circumstances  whatever 
be  neglected. 

Then  scarcely  less  important,  if  any,  than  this 
is  what  in  this  day  zve  call  Social  Service.  Of  the 
two  terms  this  is  really  the  more  comprehensive  and 
might  very  properly  be  taken  as  inclusive  of  per- 
sonal work  and  all  other  forms  of  Christian  service. 
Social  Service  means  serving  society,  and  this,  just 
this,  in  the  ultimate  is  each  and  every  form  of 
Christian  service. 

Henry  Sloane  Coffin  says,  "Social  Service  is 
everything  that  men  plan  and  do  to  accomplish  the 
purpose  of  God  in  Jesus  Christ  for  any  man,  woman 
or  child — for  any  group  of  persons — for  the  whole 
\vorld.     It  includes  evangelism,  for  the  saving  of 


230  EVANGELISM 

a  man  is  the  chief  social  service  that  can  be  rendered 
him." 

Indeed  all  the  reforms  that  have  really  blest  the 
world  have  all  followed  in  the  wake  of  revivals  of 
grace.  Dr.  Dale  has  said  that  George  Whitefield  and 
John  Wesley  did  more  for  the  social  redemption  of 
England  than  all  the  politicians  of  this  century  or 
the  last. 

In  speaking  therefore  of  social  service  we  are  not 
making  reference  to  that  system  of  proposed  amelio- 
ration that  waives  evangelism  off  the  scene  and 
substitutes  a  "  soap  and  soup  salvation "  for  the 
grace  of  God  in  Christ,  and  proposes  to  regenerate 
the  individual  by  getting  the  bad  blood  out  of  his 
veins,  the  sewer  gas  out  of  his  nostrils  and  a  dose 
of  ethical  culture  into  his  head  or  perhaps  by  secur- 
ing for  him  a  new  set  of  grandparents. 

But  we  refer  to  social  service  in  its  truer  and 
better  sense,  the  social  service  growing  out  of  the 
constraining  grace  of  God  in  Christ  and  finding 
after  all  in  that  grace  the  ground  of  its  real  worth. 
And  here,  whether  it  be  carrying  the  Gospel  to  the 
sick  and  aged,  to  those  in  prison  or  those  in  the 
slums,  taking  part  in  the  charitable  side  of  the 
church  work,  the  social  reforms  of  the  community 
or  any  of  the  many  other  forms  of  such  service — 
here  is  a  field  into  which  energies  of  the  convert  may 
be  directed  with  resultant  benefit  of  large  measure 
not  only  to  the  community  but  in  the  helpful  re- 
actionary influence  upon  the  convert  himself. 


CONSERVATION  OF  RESULTS        231 

The  pastor  who  is  aUve  to  the  needs  of  the 
situation  will  not  fail  to  realize  this  and  will  not 
only  help  the  convert  to  opportunities  for  such  serv- 
ice but  will  stress  the  importance  of  it  as  one  of 
the  chief  ends  of  the  Christian  Hfe. 

I  cannot  refrain  in  closing  this  lecture  from 
taking  one  moment  for  a  personal  application  of 
this  great  truth,  and  for  asking,  each  one  his  own 
self,  if  we  have  been  thoughtful  and  earnest  about 
this  side  of  the  Christian  life  as  we  should  have 

been. 

The  story  is  told  of  a  Russian  peasant  driving 

home  one  time  through  a  fierce  winter  night  and 

passing  the  barracks  he  saw  a  sentinel  standing  at 

his  post  and  shivering  in  the  bitter  cold.     He  took 

off  his  heavy  fur  overcoat  and  wrapped  it  about  the 

suffering  man  and  then  drove  on  for  hours  until 

he  reached  his  home.    But  the  ordeal  was  too  much 

for  him  and  pneumonia  took  hold  of  him  and  in  a 

few  weeks  brought  him  to  his  death.     He  had  a 

dream  before  he  died  and  he  said  he  dreamed  of  his 

death  and  when  he  entered  into  the  other  world 

he  found  himself  in  heaven  before  the  throne  and 

the  strange  thing  was,  he  said,  that  Jesus  seemed 

to  know  him;  and  said  the  dying  man,  "As  He 

stepped  down  from  His  throne  to  greet  me  He  had 

on  my  old  grey  overcoat."    I  believe  He  did.     "  In 

as  much  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  the  least  of  one  of 

these  ye  have  done  it  unto  me."    And  if  we  had  a 

church  with  a  membership  ready  always  to  be  as 


232  EVANGELISM 

Jesus  in  His  outgoing  compassion  for  the  broken- 
hearted and  the  stricken  there  would  be  such  a  lift- 
ing up  of  this  world's  life  to  God  as  would  cause  it 
to  shine  with  the  glorious  light  of  the  millennial 
dawn. 

These  are  only  a  few  of  the  suggestions  that 
might  profitably  be  made  concerning  the  conserva- 
tion of  results  of  a  revival  campaign  to  which,  with 
others,  if  the  pastor  will  give  himself  with  studied 
earnestness  he  will  not  be  found  chagrined  and  dis- 
appointed over  the  unstable  and  dissipated  results 
of  what  he  had  prayed  and  hoped  would  be  a  cam- 
paign of  large  and  permanent  fruitage  for  his  own 
church  and  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  for  which  his 
church  exists. 


THE    GREAT    EVANGELIST— THE    HOLY 
SPIRIT 


THE   GREAT  EVANGELIST— THE   HOLY   SPIRIT 
I.   The  place  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Economy  of  God. 
II.    His  Personality. 

III.  His  Indwelling. 

IV.  His  Infilling  or  Baptism. 

(i)  What  it  is. 

(2)  What  it  does  for  us. 

(a)  As  to  character. 

(b)  As  to  knowledge. 

(c)  As  to  power. 

(3)  Do  we  need  it? 

(4)  How  may  it  be  secured? 

(5)  What  it  involves. 

V.   We  may  have  Him  in  His  fulness  now. 


THE    GREAT    EVANGELIST— THE    HOLY 
SPIRIT 

THE  world  is  continually  bearing  silent  but 
mighty  testimony  to  the  unique  and  im- 
portant personage  of  Jesus  Christ  by  dating 
its  chronology  from  His  advent.  And  just  as  the 
chronology  of  the  world  is  dated  from  Christ*s  ad- 
vent, so  the  chronology  of  the  Church  should  be  and 
is  dated  from  the  advent  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

But  the  promise  of  Jesus  was  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
would  abide.  He  was  to  be  the  administrator  of  the 
affairs  of  the  Kingdom.  His  ministry  therefore  did 
not  come  to  an  end  with  the  establishment  of  the 
Church.  He  is  here  today  and  as  sorely  needed  now 
as  then. 

The  Holy  Spirit  is  mentioned  90  times  in  the-Old 
Testament  and  264  times  in  the  New  Testament 
and  He  surely  must  play  a  very  important  part  in 
the  economy  of  God  to  be  given  a  place  of  so  much 
prominence  in  the  divine  revelation  to  us.  The 
minister  of  the  Gospel  as  well  as  the  members  of  his 
church  are  far  away  from  appreciating  this  fact  as 
they  ought. 

A  noted  doctor  once  said  that  if  the  average 
285 


236  EVANGELISM 

physician  didn^t  know  any  more  about  Materia 
Medica  than  the  average  church  member  knows 
about  the  Bible  and  God's  plan  of  redemption  he 
would  give  up  his  profession  as  a  self-confessed 
failure.  This  thing  can  be  said  especially  as  to  the 
Person  and  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  not 
merely  for  the  sake  of  the  knowledge  itself — the 
knowledge  of  who  He  is  and  what  He  has  done  and 
what  He  is  able  to  do  today,  but  for  the  sake  of 
what  a  personal  appropriation  of  His  offer  to  work 
in  us  and  through  us  will  mean  both  for  ourselves 
and  for  the  world  that  we  should  be  intelligent  along 
this  line. 

Many  of  us  are  like  Al  Hafed.  We  are  losing 
our  inheritance  because  we  don^t  know  what  it  is. 
There  came  from  the  press  some  time  ago  the  story 
of  a  man  who  lived  through  a  trance  to  a  period 
one  hundred  years  after  the  trance  came  upon  him. 
I  mean,  "  Looking  Backward,''  by  Edward  Bellamy. 
In  fact  we  have  found  that  Mr.  Bellamy  was  not  so 
crazy  after  all.  Society  according  to  this  book  had 
made  marvellous  advances  and  everywhere  the  man 
turned  he  was  met  with  new  revelations  of  grandeur 
and  glory.  The  wonders  of  science  and  the  marvels 
of  invention  were  so  many  that  he  could  scarcely 
comprehend  them  and  at  times  he  simply  felt  com- 
pelled to  sit  down  and  contemplate  and  wonder  at 
the  marvellous  things  to  which  he  had  fallen  heir. 
It  is  exactly  so  with  the  study  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 
At  every  step  you  take  you  find  some  new  treasure, 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  237 

some  richer  experience,  some  closer  fellowship,  some 
additional  increment  of  power  until  you  are  simply 
compelled  to  sit  back  and  wonder  at  the  marvellous 
grace  that  brought  it  all  about. 

You  will  notice  that  we  have  used  the  personal 
pronoun  in  speaking  about  the  Holy  Spirit.  So  does 
the  Word  everywhere.  I  have  had  people  say  that 
it  is  hard  to  think  of  Him  as  a  person.  But  there  is 
no  reason  why  it  should  be.  The  thing  that  makes 
a  person  of  you  is  not  the  colour  of  your  eyes  nor 
the  sound  of  your  voice  nor  the  shape  of  your  body. 
It  is  that  about  you  that  thinks,  wills,  loves  and  ap- 
preciates moral  distinctions,  and  if  the  Holy  Spirit 
can  do  these  things  then  He  is  a  person  just  as 
much  as  you  are  or  I  am. 

When  you  once  begin  to  appreciate  the  fact  that 
the  Holy  Spirit  is  a  person,  it  is  painful  to  hear  Him 
spoken  of  as  an  "  it ".  You  wouldn't  appreciate 
being  called  an  "  it  "  yourself.  I  often  hear  people 
who  ought  to  know  better  ask  God  in  praying  for 
the  Holy  Spirit  to  send  "  it "  upon  them. 

In  fact,  in  a  very  certain  sense  it  is  hardly  proper 
to  pray  at  all  that  God  would  send  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  us.  The  Holy  Spirit  has  already  been  sent.  He 
is  here.  If  there  is  any  verse  the  Christian  ought 
to  memorize  and  appreciate,  it  is  I  Corinthians 
3 :  1 6, — "  Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temples 
of  God  and  that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in 
you?" 

We  are  amazed  at  the  unmeasured  condescension 


238  EVANGELISM 

that  brought  the  Spirit  of  God  as  a  permanent  resi- 
dent to  these  unhallowed  bodies  of  ours  and  caused 
them  to  become,  as  Paul  says  in  another  place,  the 
hallowed  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  But  just  this 
is  God's  Word  to  us.  The  Christian  therefore  is 
already  in  possession  of  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Every  man  at  his  regeneration  receives  the 
Holy  Spirit,  and  "  li  any  man  has  not  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  he  is  none  of  His." 

It  is  not  therefore  the  coming  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
that  we  need,  nor  for  which  we  should  pray.  We 
need  rather  to  have  the  already  indwelling  Spirit  of 
God  work  out  His  unhindered  will  in  our  soul. 
Sometimes  somebody  will  say,  "  How  much  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  may  I  have?"  But  we  need  to  have 
a  care  just  here.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  a  person  and 
when  He  comes  He  comes  in  His  entirety.  It  is 
not  after  all  a  question  of  how  much  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  you  may  have.  It  is  a  question  of  how  much 
of  yourself  you  are  ready  to  make  over  to  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

No  one  will  ever  know  what  it  really  means  to 
be  a  Christian;  what  really  is  the  thought  of  God 
for  His  child  until  He  has  in  glad  self -surrender 
to  the  will  of  God  allowed  the  Holy  Spirit  to  enter 
the  throne  room  of  his  soul  and  rule  his  life  in  un- 
disputed sway.  You  will  remember  that  Paul  prayed 
a  marvellous  prayer  for  us — ^that  we  "  might  be 
filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.'*  That  is  prayer  in- 
deed, as  William  Arthur  said,  at  which  we  falter. 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  239 

I  know  it  seems  like  a  sublime  flight  after  the  im- 
possible, but  we  must  not  forget  that  the  God  of  our 
fathers  is  our  God  today. 

People  are  asking  what  the  Baptism  of  the  Holy- 
Spirit  means.  I  like  rather  to  speak  of  it  as  Paul 
did  when  he  said,  "  Be  filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit." 
And  if  I  were  to  attempt  an  answer  to  that  question 
of  what  this  means  I  would  say,  It  means  just  that 
to  which  we  have  already  referred.  It  is  God  Him- 
self, pouring  His  fulness,  so  to  speak,  into  the  empty 
reservoir  of  a  believer^s  soul;  God  Himself,  in  the 
person  of  His  Holy  Spirit,  working  out  His  un- 
hindered will  in  a  man's  soul  for  the  perfection  of 
his  life,  the  enlightenment  of  his  mind  and  his 
equipment  for  service,  causing  him  to  be  and  to  know 
and  to  do  all  that  is  possible  in  this  way  for  the  soul 
and  the  life  of  that  man  to  experience. 

To  be — that  means  Character.  To  know — that 
mean  Knowledge.    To  do — that  means  Power. 

Character!  I  do  not  believe  that  in  passing 
from  the  seventh  to  the  eighth  chapter  of  Romans 
Paul  ever  for  one  moment  meant  to  imply  that  he 
had  left  the  old  nature  and  its  antagonisms  forever 
behind.  But  I  do  believe  in  victory  over  sin  and 
that  the  second  verse  of  the  eighth  chapter  of 
Romans  is  its  law.  "  For  the  law  of  the  Spirit  of 
life  in  Christ  Jesus,"  says  Paul,  "hath  made  me 
free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death." 

I  have  known  weak  and  faltering  Christians  to  be 
so  transformed  by  the  filling  of  God's  Spirit  that 


240  EVANGELISM 

they  became  utter  strangers  to  their  former  selves. 
But  you  and  I  shall  stand  helpless  and  abashed  in 
the  presence  of  our  temptations  and  our  sin  until 
we  learn  out  of  a  rich  experience  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  can  flow  through  the  soul  like  a  mighty  tide  of 
conquering  power  overcoming  and  driving  out  and 
drowning  out  the  old  self  life  until  our  lives  shall 
be  touched  with  something  of  the  very  beauty  of 
the  character  of  the  Son  of  God. 

Knowledge!     And  this  is  threefold 

First, — "  The  Spirit  beareth  witness  with  our 
spirits  that  we  are  the  Children  of  God."  That's 
knowledge  of  sonship;  assurance  of  salvation.  The 
Christian  who  is  simply  a  hoping  Christian  is  a 
"  hopping  "  Christian  after  all.  It's  a  lame  religion 
that  doesn't  know  its  Lord. 

It  is  possible  to  have  such  a  deep  witness  of  God's 
Spirit  with  your  own,  that  God  will  become  so  real 
to  you,  through  the  revelation  of  His  Son,  that  all 
things  else  in  the  universe  will  seem  unreal  in  com- 
parison with  Him,  and  if  your  life  has  been  count- 
ing but  little  for  God  and  bringing  but  little  satis- 
faction to  your  own  soul  you  will  find  one  of  the 
reasons  for  this  in  that  you  have  lacked  this  knowl- 
edge, this  assurance  of  sonship,  that  comes  from  the 
filling  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Second, — "  As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  they  are  the  sons  of  God."    That's  knowledge 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  241 

of  the  will  of  God  concerning  the  question  of  duty. 
It  is  ours,  He  has  told  us,  "  to  be  able  to  prove  and 
to  know  what  is  the  perfect  and  acceptable  will  of 
God." 

As  clearly  as  the  children  of  God  in  other  days 
were  guided  by  the  shining  cloud  and  the  bright  fire, 
so  does  the  voice  of  His  Spirit  whisper  today  to 
the  soul  that  has  the  listening  ear.  And  if  we  are 
not  quick  to  discern  between  right  and  wrong;  if 
we  do  not  know  where  to  go  or  what  to  do,  the  fault 
is  ours.  And  the  truth  is  that  if  we  are  not  walking 
in  clear  paths  shining  brighter  and  brighter  unto  the 
perfect  day  it  is  because  we  are  not  filled  with  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  God. 

Third, — "The  Spirit  searcheth  all  things,  yea, 
the  deep  things  of  God."  That's  knowledge  of 
God's  truth,  and  when  the  Spirit  of  God  becomes 
your  interpreter  you  will  find  the  pages  of  His 
blessed  Book  flowing  with  light  and  throbbing  with 
the  manifestation  of  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ  Jesus. 
The  deepest  teachings  of  the  Word  are  almost 
meaningless  for  most  members  of  the  church.  Paul 
says,  "  these  things  are  spiritually  discerned."  And 
to  be  "  filled  with  the  Spirit "  will  be  to  read  with 
an  ever-increasing  clearness  of  spiritual  perception 
the  things  of  God  which  are  as  yet  written  in  mys- 
tery for  the  ordinary  child  of  God.  For  these 
things,  says  Paul,  "  are  revealed  unto  us  by  His 
Spirit." 

If  this  book  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  is  the  Word 


242  EVANGELISM 

of  God  it  is  a  mighty  important  thing  to  know  what 
it  says. 

But  what  does  the  Word  of  God  say?  Inter- 
preted by  cold  logic  and  acute  learning  alone  we 
have  one  answer  in  the  dark  heresies  of  the  pulpit 
and  the  barren  theological  treatises  of  so-called  re- 
ligious scholars.  But  the  promise  of  Christ  was  that 
when  the  Holy  Spirit  came  He  would  "  guide  us 
into  all  truth,"  and  a  mind  illumined  by  the  Spirit, 
a  scholar  or  a  child  "filled  with  the  Spirit"  can 
no  more  doubt,  as  he  studies  the  Word,  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  the  need  and  worth  of  His  atonement 
or  the  inspiration  of  the  Book  than  he  can  doubt  the 
fact  of  his  own  existence  in  the  universe  round  about 
him. 

Power!  "Ye  shall  receive  power,"  said 
Christ  to  the  disciples,  "  after  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  come  upon  you,  and  ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto 
me."    That's  power  for  service. 

You  can't  define  power.  But  you  can  appreciate 
it.  There  is  power  in  fire,  and  mighty  buildings  of 
brick  and  stone  and  iron  are  melted  at  its  touch. 
There  is  power  in  wind  and  mighty  ships  are  driven 
across  the  sea,  deep-rooted  forests  are  torn  from  the 
earth  and  whole  cities  are  swept  into  splintered  ruin. 
There  is  power  in  water.  Think  of  the  irresistible 
power  of  a  flood.  And  yet  if  these  could  speak 
they  could  not  tell  you  what  power  is.  But  in  the 
Word  of  God,  fire,  wind  and  water  are  all  used  as 
emblems  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  243 

What  is  power  ?  "  God  hath  spoken  once,  yea, 
twice  have  I  heard  this,  that  power  belongeth  unto 
God."  And  it  can't  be  divorced  from  God.  And 
no  man  can  obtain  it  save  as  God  Himself  comes 
with  it. 

And  this  is  what  the  Church  of  God  needs  today. 
Do  not  say  the  early  disciples  needed  it  but  that  we 
do  not.  They  did  need  it.  The  task  they  were  to 
accomplish  was  next  to  impossible — yes,  it  was  im- 
possible. But  they  knew  that  the  touch  of  the  Spirit 
of  God  was  to  make  the  impossible  possible.  And 
when  He  came  it  was  to  fill  them  with  a  power  like 
the  very  might  of  God  Himself  and  which  sent 
them  put  from  their  room  of  waiting  to  stand  with 
their  simple  eloquence  and  indisputable  facts  before 
the  world's  prejudice  and  hate  and  change  it  as  if 
by  magic  into  love  and  holy  enthusiasm  for  the 
Christ  of  God. 

And  if  the  men  chosen  of  Christ,  whose  three 
years  of  seminary  were  three  years  at  this  marvellous 
Teacher's  feet,  who  saw  His  miracles  and  witnessed 
His  resurrection,  were  not  allowed  to  stir  one  step  in 
the  way  of  active  service  until  they  were  filled  with 
the  Holy  Spirit,  is  it  not  the  most  dangerous  pre- 
sumption, the  most  sinful  self-confidence  as  well  as 
the  greatest  folly  to  expect  that  we  shall  accomplish 
anything  for  God  unless  we  too  have  been  filled  with 
His  Spirit? 

From  the  earliest  day  even  to  the  present  time  the 
men  who  have  brought  things  to  pass  in  any  large 


244*  EVANGELISM 

or  remarkable  way  have  been  men  who  never  dared 
to  stir  until  they  knew  they  were  going  forth 
anointed  with  the  power  of  the  Most  High  God. 
This  is  the  secret  of  their  glorious  success. 

I  do  not  know  how  polished  Peter  was  as  an 
orator,  but  I  do  know  that  he  was  a  great  preacher. 
Paul  said,  you  know,  "  I  was  with  you  in  weakness, 
but  my  preaching  was  in  power."  And  when  a  man 
preaches  or  a  child  of  God  witnesses  in  the  power 
of  the  Spirit,  as  the  sainted  MacGregor  says,  "  he 
will  make  men  listen  and  make  men  think  and  make 
men  act.'' 

So  it  must  be  with  you  and  me  unless  we  are  to 
be  satisfied  with  a  barren  ministry — which  may  God 
forbid.  But  it  need  not  be  so.  God  says,  "  I  will 
pour  my  Spirit  upon  him  that  is  thirsty/*  and  we 
can  have  Him  in  His  fulness  now  if  we  really 
long  for  this  measure  of  blessing  with  a  proper 
longing. 

I  say,  "  with  a  proper  longing."  The  desire  must 
be  unselfish.  It  is  no  part  of  the  Spirit's  work  to 
glorify  you  or  me.  A  man  will  sometimes  stand 
up  and  say,  "  Pray  for  me ;  I  want  to  be  used." 
But  the  desire  to  be  used  may  be  an  accursed  am- 
bition. We  are  not  to  expect  this  blessing  for  our 
own  sake  but  for  His  sake. 

It  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  you  shall  be 
carried  into  a  place  of  great  prominence.  It  may 
mean  the  opposite.  But  it  does  mean  that  your  min- 
istry shall  be  a  ministry  of  power,  and  wherever  it 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  245 

takes  you,  better  be  there  with  Him  than  anywhere 
else  without  Him. 

A'nd  so  I  say  again,  we  may  have  the  fulness  of 
His  Spirit  if  we  long  for  it  with  an  unselfish  longing. 
It  is  only  a  question  of  our  willingness  to  pay  the 
price.  A'nd  so  I  come  to  you  with  the  question, 
Are  you  willing?  Willing  to  pay  the  price?  And 
what  is  that  price?  It  is  a  whole-hearted,  absolute, 
irrevocable  surrender  of  oneself  to  the  will  of  God. 
It  means  to  say,  "  Lord,  I  do  now,  this  minute,  give 
myself  to  Thee.  Speak,  for  thy  servant  heareth,  and 
when  Thou  hast  spoken,  I  will  not  pause  to  consider 
whether  I  shall  run  or  tarry,  but  the  word  that  Thou 
dost  speak  unto  me,  that  will  I  perform." 

Do  not  say,  "  Make  known  Thy  will  unto  me,  O 
God,  and  I  will  think  about  it."  But  make  your 
surrender  first  and  then  say,  "  Show  me  Thy  will, 
O  God,  and  by  Thy  grace  I  will  do  it."  This  is 
the  stepping-stone  upon  which  and  over  which  one 
must  go — the  stepping-stone  of  one's  own  dead  self ; 
— this  is  the  doorway  through  which  one  must  pass 
into  the  larger  life  of  illimitable  blessing  where  God 
would  have  us  come, — the  way  of  self -surrender. 

Now  it  would  not  be  fair  if  I  did  not  say  that  in 
such  a  surrender  two  things  are  involved. 

First — A  complete  renuftciation  of  sin,  A  vessel 
can  be  filled  only  as  it  is  emptied.  And  how  can 
we  expect  our  lives  to  become  beautiful  and  strong 
if  we  continue  to  "  make  provision  for  the  flesh  to 


246  EVANGELISM 

fulfil  the  lusts  thereof,"  and  to  fight  against  what 
the  mighty  indwelling  Spirit  of  God  would  do  for 
us,  because  of  our  love  for  some  sin  which  we  would 
rather  indulge  than  to  be  what  God  by  His  grace 
would  have  us  to  be  and  what  by  His  power  He 
could  make  us  to  be? 

And  there  must  be  no  compromise.  When  passion 
takes  hold  on  the  life,  God  expects  a  man  to  shrink 
not  only  from  the  unholy  deed  itself  but  from  the 
unholy  imagination  concerning  it.  "As  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he."  Then  here  is  a  man 
who  despises  debauchery  but  loses  out  and  goes 
astray  in  the  realm  of  finer  distinctions. 

It  is  also  at  such  a  time  as  this  that  one  meets  the 
problem  of  the  questionable  as  at  no  other  time.  I 
am  not  going  to  say  that  you  cannot  do  certain 
things  and  be  a  Christian,  but  I  am  going  to  say 
that  whatever  nourishes  the  carnal  nature  hinders 
your  spiritual  development  and  you  cannot  give 
yourself  to  a  thing  like  that  and  know  the  fulness 
of  the  blessing  that  comes  from  the  filling  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  And  if  you  have  not  been  true  to  the 
leading  of  God's  Spirit  in  this  respect  you  have  not 
yet  been  in  the  place  to  which  I  trust  you  may  come 
today. 

When  God  sent  Saul  against  the  Amalekites  He 
told  him  to  "  slay  utterly."  But  Saul  spared  Agag 
and  the  best  of  the  flocks  under  the  pretence  that  he 
needed  them  to  sacrifice  unto  the  Lord.  But  Samuel, 
the  prophet,  said,  "  Saul,  do  you  think  that  God  has 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  247 

as  great  delight  in  burnt  offerings  as  He  does  in 
obeying  His  voice?  Behold,  to  obey  is  better  than 
to  sacrifice;  and  now,  because  thou  hast  rejected  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  He  also  hath  rejected  thee  from 
being  King.'*  So  too  must  you  and  I  in  dealing  with 
sin  "  slay  utterly  "  and  "  spare  none,"  and  to  be  dis- 
obedient here  means  to  become  "  the  servant  of  sin  " 
and  to  lose  the  mastery  which  is  ours  through  a 
Christ  who  is  not  only  able  to  save  but  mighty  to 
keep. 

Again  the  question  comes.  Are  you  willing? 
Willing  to  die  to  sin?  Willing  to  die  to  the  carnal 
nature  with  its  unholy  ambitions  and  all  that  makes 
for  poverty  and  dearth  of  spiritual  life  and  power? 

"  If  Christ  would  live  and  reign  in  me, 

I  must  die. 
Like  Him  I  crucified  must  be, 

I  must  die. 
So  dead  that  no  desire  may  rise, 
To  pass  for  good,  or  great,  or  wise, 
In  any  but  my  Saviour's  eyes. 

I  must  die.    I  must  die." 

The  Jews,  the  night  before  the  Passover,  were 
commanded  to  put  away  all  leaven  out  of  the  house. 
And  when  this  was  done  the  faithful  Jew  would 
say,  "  And  now  if  there  be  any  leaven  in  this  house, 
it  is  here  against  my  will."  My  brother,  have  you 
been  discouraged  about  this  matter?  I  wonder  if 
today,  if  just  now,  some  of  us  would  yield  our 
whole  life  entirely  up  to  the  Spirit  of  God  and  say 
of  our  sin  what  the  faithful  Jew  said  of  his  leaven, 


248  EVANGELISM 

if  there  would  not  come  into  your  life  and  mine  an 
experience  such  as  we  have  never  yet  known  and 
with  it  such  a  passing  away  of  old  things  as  would 
cause  us  to  marvel  at  our  former  selves.  Are  you 
willing  ? 

Second — ^An  unconditional  dedication  to  the  serv- 
ice of  Christ  wherever  and  whatever  it  may  he. 

Never  mind  about  the  conspicuous  place  and  the 
great  congregation.  A  man  might  have  all  this  and 
yet  not  bring  one  soul  to  a  saving  knowledge  of 
Jesus  Christ.  While  on  the  other  hand  the  perform- 
ing of  such  a  service  for  an  untutored  shoe-clerk 
in  a  Boston  store  proved  itself  under  God  to  be 
the  source  of  leading  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
people  into  the  light  of  God. 

The  thing  of  biggest  concern  to  you,  my  brother, 
is  to  be  where  God  wants  you  and  whether  it  be 
in  one  place  or  another,  only  as  you  have  found  your 
way  there  in  obedience  to  the  word  you  believe  your 
Lord  to  have  spoken  can  the  power  of  God  be 
manifested  through  you  to  the  world  that  needs  and 
awaits  your  message. 

I  one  time  heard  B.  Fay  Mills  tell  of  a  young 
graduate  of  the  theological  seminary  who  became 
the  pastor  of  a  church  and  preached  to  great  crowds 
but  no  one  was  converted.  He  went  back  to  the 
seminary  for  a  post  graduate  course  of  one  year 
and  then  became  the  pastor  again  with  the  same 
result.  He  thought  he  needed  more  theology  and 
homiletics,  more  Hebrew  and  Greek  and  so  he  went 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  249 

back  to  the  seminary  for  a  second  year  of  post- 
graduate work.     He  then  took  another  church  but 
while  great  throngs  came  to  hear  him  preach,  no 
one  ever  came  to  Christ.     And  one  day  he  was 
sitting  in  a  meeting  when  God  commenced  to  talk 
to  him.    God  said,  "  Have  you  ever  given  yourself 
to  Me?  "    And  the  young  man  thought  of  the  litde 
village  church  that  had  called  him  to  be  its  pastor 
but  which  call  he  had  declined  because  he  wanted 
to  preach  in  the  city.    Then  he  thought  of  the  little 
mission  church  over  in  Brooklyn  that  wanted  him 
to  come  and  undertake  its  work  and  God  had  seemed 
to  say,  ''  Go !  "    But  he  had  said,  "  I  don't  want  to 
be  the  pastor  of  a  mission  church."     And  he  had 
declined  the  call.    And  as  he  thought  it  all  over  he 
said,  "  No,  Lord,  I  have  never  given  myself  to  Thee, 
but  I  will  go  back  to  my  room  where  I  am  staying 
and  I  will  give  myself  to  Thee  and  do  thy  will." 
And  then  the  blessed  Holy  Spirit  who  always  whis- 
pers the  right  thing  at  the  right  time  said  to  him, 
"Why  not  do  it  now?"  and  he  bowed  himself  on 
the  seat  before  him  and  said,  "  Yes,  Lord,  I  do 
here  and  now  give  myself  to  Thee,"  and  as  he  went 
out  of  the  church  he  met  at  the  church  door  an  old 
man,  a  saint  of  God,  whom  he  knew  and  he  said  to 
him,  "  I  will  do  anything  and  go  anywhere  for  God 
now,"  and  God  gave  him  a  ministry  of  mighty 
power  in  after-years. 

And  now  the  question  comes  again.     Are  you 
willing?    Willing  to  make  the  formula  of  your  life 


250  EVANGELISM 

from  this  hour  on,  "  Anything,  an)rwhere,  any 
time  "  ?  That,  just  that,  is  what  self -surrender 
means. 

Mr.  Meyer  tells  of  a  young  woman  anxious  about 
the  filling  of  the  Holy  Spirit  but  who  was  in  great 
distress  of  mind  concerning  certain  things  which 
she  felt  eager  to  keep  under  her  own  control.  She 
was  not  without  experience  but  she  longed  for  some- 
thing better  than  she  had  ever  known.  She  had 
gone  as  if  it  were  to  the  altar  many  a  time  but  she 
would  not  lay  the  sacrifice  upon  it.  Until  one  day 
in  a  moment  of  heroic  decision  she  fell  upon  her 
knees,  took  a  large  piece  of  blank  paper,  signed  it 
at  the  bottom  and  then  laid  it  before  God  and  told 
Him  to  fill  it  out  as  He  pleased  and  by  His  grace 
she  would  do  it. 

I  wonder  how  many  of  us  are  ready  for  a  thing 
like  that  just  now.  Then  to  as  many  as  are  ready 
let  me  say  these  last  two  things.  Make  it  defi- 
nite and  count  it  done. 

First — Make  it  definite.  The  question  is  often 
asked  as  to  whether  the  life  of  complete  consecra- 
tion is  an  act  or  an  experience;  whether  it  is  in- 
stantaneous or  gradual.  I  think  it  is  both.  It  is  a 
life  that  is  definitely  commenced  and  definitely  lived. 

It  was  only  when  Abraham  took  God  at  His  word 
and  went  out  not  knowing  whither  that  God  led  him 
into  the  place  of  unlimited  blessing.     It  will  be  so 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  ^51 

with  you.  God  will  be  calling  you  to  other  consecra- 
tions, each  one  a  doorway  into  a  larger  place,  but 
never  until  it  is  distinctly  settled  in  your  own  mind 
and  made  a  reality  by  a  definite  act  of  your  own 
will  that  once  for  all  and  forever  you  are  God's  as 
far  as  all  that  you  do  not  know  is  concerned  as  well 
as  all  things  that  you  do  kfiow  and  that  by  His  grace 
you  will  never  become  your  own  again. 

When  the  Israelite  came  and  placed  his  offering 
on  the  altar  in  other  days  he  never  dreamed  of 
coming  again  the  next  day  and  asking  it  back.  So 
must  the  offering  of  yourself  be  made  to  God  as  a 
sacrifice  that  passes  completely  and  forever  from 
your  control  just  as  if  you  were  an  offering  literally 
slain  and  offered  in  death  upon  an  altar. 

I  think  of  the  man  who  said  in  making  his  sur- 
render to  God,  "  I  felt  as  though  I  walked  out  to 
the  end  of  the  ridgepole  in  the  darkness  and  jumped 
off  and  Jesus  caught  me."  And  again  the  question 
comes,  Are  you  willing?  Then  do  it  now.  Down 
in  the  deep  place  of  your  own  soul  tell  God  you  do 
now  take  the  hands  forever  off  yourself,  and  that 
so  far  as  you  know  your  own  heart  you  do  now 
consciously,  deliberately  and  definitely  give  it  to 
Him  and  that  henceforth  you  will  have  no  wish  of 
your  own  or  no  will  of  your  own  save  to  wish 
what  God  wishes  and  to  will  what  God  wills,  and 
let  God  prove  Himself  to  you  as  He  has  proved 
Himself  to  multitudes  of  others. 

Second — Count  it  done,    I  mean  by  that  to  accept 


252  EVANGELISM 

it  as  a  matter  of  faith  and  act  upon  it  as  an  accom- 
plished thing  in  your  life. 

It  will  take  more  than  a  moment  of  time  to  reveal 
unto  us  the  largeness  of  the  place  into  which  God 
wants  to  lead  us  and  will,  but  there  never  was  and 
there  never  will  be  any  other  way  to  find  that  place 
and  to  walk  in  the  fulness  of  peace  and  purity  and 
power  than  by  faith — faith,  not  only  that  God  can 
but  that  God  does  fulfil  His  will  in  us. 

Never  mind  about  any  strange  emotional  ex- 
perience. Never  mind  about  the  waves  of  electricity 
that  Finney  said  seemed  to  fan  him  like  immense 
wings.  God  never  fails  to  take  into  consideration 
a  man's  own  temperament.  But  such  things  are  not 
the  indispensable  accompaniments  of  the  filling  of 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

When  Mr.  F.  B.  Meyer  went  up  to  the  Keswick 
Convention  he  listened  to  the  noise  and  all  the  out- 
ward expression  of  those  who  were  more  demonstra- 
tive than  himself  and  he  went  out  on  the  hillside  in 
the  night  and  simply  said,  "  O  God,  I  am  tired  in 
body  and  mind  and  cannot  bring  myself  into  tune 
with  all  this;  is  there  not  some  other  way  for  me?  " 
And  God  said,  "  Yes,  my  child,  give  yourself  to 
me  and  receive  the  blessing  by  faith  just  as  you 
did  the  gift  of  the  crucified  Christ."  And  said  Mr. 
Meyer,  "  Then  and  there  I  did  give  myself  to  God 
as  I  had  never  given  myself  before  and  I  arose  from 
my  knees  confidently  believing  the  blessing  was 
mine."     Will   you   do   this?     Will   you   so   give 


THE  GREAT  EVANGELIST  253 

yourself    to    God    and    let    Him    prove    Himself 
to  you? 

I  think  of  the  student  in  Phillips  Academy  who 
couldn't  pass  his  examinations  but  who  had  a  pas- 
sion to  preach  and  exerted  a  powerful  influence  for 
Christ  in  the  school.  The  professors  decided  to  put 
a  parenthesis  around  his  college  course  and  send 
him  into  the  Theological  Seminary  across  the  road. 
But  the  poor  fellow  didn't  make  any  better  progress 
there,  but  he  was  known  as  the  most  consecrated 
man  in  the  institution.  Toward  vacation  time  a 
call  came  from  a  small  town  up  in  New  Hampshire 
where  the  party  writing  said  they  had  no  Sabbath, 
no  Bible  and  no  church  and  where  this  party  was  the 
only  one  who  believed  in  Christ.  This  was  the  kind 
of  a  call  most  of  the  students  didn't  seem  to  care 
much  about,  but  this  young  fellow  said  he  thought 
it  was  just  the  place  where  God  wanted  him  to  go. 
But  another  difficulty  arose.  He  couldn't  pass 
enough  examination  to  get  a  license.  Finally  the 
professors  decided  that  he  couldn't  do  much  harm  in 
six  months  anyhow  and  so  they  gave  him  a  six 
months'  license  and  let  him  go.  He  was  there  but  a 
few  years  until  he  died,  but  I  give  it  to  you  on  good 
authority;  before  he  died  he  had  won  every  man, 
woman  and  child  in  that  village  to  Jesus  Christ  but 
one  man  who  moved  away  shortly  after  the  young 
minister  came. 

Oh,  my  brother,  hear  me,  "  The  eyes  of  the  Lord 
are  running  to  and  fro  throughout  the  whole  earth 


254.  EVANGELISM 

to  show  Himself  strong  in  behalf  of  them  whose 
heart  is  right  toward  Him,"  and  He  is  still  using  the 
foolish  things  of  this  world  to  confound  the  things 
that  are  wise  and  the  weak  things  to  confound  the 
things  that  are  mighty  and  the  things  that  are  not 
to  bring  to  naught  the  things  that  are;  and  what 
you  need  is  not  more  native  ability,  not  more  aca- 
demic equipment — these  things  are  good — ^but  God 
is  waiting,  waiting  for  you  to  give  yourself,  to 
really  give  yourself  to  God  that  God  might  give 
Himself  to  you,  and  so  cause  you  to  be  all  that 
man  can  be  and  to  do  all  that  man  can  do,  and  then 
indeed  all  things  shall  be  yours  and  the  Kingdom  of 
God  shall  indeed  be  within  you  and  in  the  power 
of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  the  mighty  God  you  shall  go 
forth  as  did  one  of  old,  '*  to  be  set  over  kingdoms, 
to  root  out,  to  pull  down,  to  destroy,  to  overthrow 
and  to  build  and  to  plant." 


THE   END 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  01232  2006 


Date  Due 

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